The suspect in court
Police arrest serial child molester in Bnei Brak
Four-year-old girl sexually assaulted in stairwell of her building. Eighteen-year-old caught on security tape arrested. Police claim he is linked to many other cases in neighborhood. Suspect provides false alibi
Just next to her home in the stairwell of her apartment building, a four-year-old girl from Bnei Brak underwent a traumatic experience on Thursday when a young man overcame her by force and sexually assaulted her.
The man, 18 from Bnei Brak, sodomized the girl and committed lewd acts on her. The girl was brave and told her parents. After an investigation, the police arrested the 18-year old, suspected of being a serial sexual assaulter. His remand was extended on Friday.
The girl's parents immediately reported the incident to the police, and the girl was questioned by a children's investigator. However, due to her difficult emotional state, the investigators found it difficult to get her to speak and are expected to hear her version of events again once she recovers.
Intelligence received by the police revealed that similar allegations of sexually assaulting little girls in the neighborhood have been made against the suspect.
The young man, who is not known to the police, denied outright the allegations made against him. However, the police are in possession of a video clip from a nearby security camera that documents the suspect carrying out some of the acts being ascribed to him.
During a court hearing on the extension of the suspect's remand, the man's parents assaulted press photographers trying to take the suspect's picture, and were pushed back by court security guards. Judge Gilya Ravid agreed to the Public Defender's Office's request to prohibit the publication of the man's name and picture.
The police representative in the hearing noted, "This is a very grave case. We are claiming the highest level of dangerousness. We have indication of many other similar incidents within a radius of 100 meters (yards) from the event involving other little girls."
The suspect's father, who was investigated Thursday by the police, watched the security video and said that he could identify his son, but not 100%.
The police representative noted during the hearing that "the suspect provided an alibi that was found to be false according to which he claimed to be in Jerusalem during the incident, though he was at home."
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