MELBOURNE, Australia — The authorities in Australia have charged a 20-year-old man with the rape and murder of Aiia Maasarwe, an Israeli exchange student who was attacked on a Melbourne street this week.
The man, Codey Herrmann, of the Melbourne suburb of Greensborough, was arrested on Friday afternoon and was charged in the Melbourne Magistrates’ Court on Saturday. He was being held without bail and was scheduled to appear in court again on Monday.
The police allege that Mr. Herrmann, who has been described by local news media as an aspiring rapper, killed Ms. Maasarwe, 21, just after midnight on Wednesday morning.
She had been returning from a night out with friends and was speaking via FaceTime to her sister, who is overseas, on the short walk from a public transportation stop to her home when the attack occurred, the police said.
“The phone then appeared to fall to the ground and she couldn’t contact her,” Detective Inspector Andrew Stamper of the Victoria State Police said during a news conference on Thursday.
Ms. Maasarwe’s body was discovered around 7 a.m. by passers-by.
On Friday evening, hundreds of people gathered on the steps of Parliament House in Melbourne to pay tribute to Ms. Maasarwe, the second woman killed in an apparently random attack on the city’s streets in less than a year.
It echoed the June killing of Eurydice Dixon, a 22-year-old comedian, in Melbourne. A 19-year-old man, Jaymes Todd, was arrested shortly after her death and later pleaded guilty to her rape and murder.
She and other activists said they now planned to hold a vigil every time a woman was murdered, regardless of who the perpetrator might be.
At the vigil, many people wore black at the organizers’ request, and they remained largely silent to respect the wishes of Ms. Maasarwe’s family. They are from Baqa al-Gharbiyye, a predominantly Arab city in the north of Israel, and identify as Palestinian.
“For her to come here and be met by this kind of violence, it’s terrifying,” said Tasnim Sammak, a 27-year-old Ph.D. student at Monash University and a member of Melbourne’s Palestinian community, which has rallied together in support of the family.
Some sat huddled on the steps around Ms. Maasarwe’s father, Saeed Maasarwe, who had flown to Australia to identify his daughter’s body.
Nothing, said Mr. Maasarwe, could bring his daughter back, but it comforted him to see so many people there. “I don’t hate or have ill feelings, my compass points towards a better future for everyone,” he said.
Daniel Andrews, the premier of Victoria, was among those who sent condolences to Ms. Maasarwe’s family and friends on social media. “She should have been safe here,” he said on Twitter. “And I am heartbroken she wasn’t.”
Source : Nytimes
