The family of an Arab-Israeli student found dead in Melbourne have urged Australian authorities to bring her killer to justice.
Relatives in Israel described 21-year-old Aiia Maasarweas a gifted student who was enjoying her time in Australia.
“She’s beautiful, she’s clever – that’s why I don’t believe what’s happened to her,” her uncle Ahmad Maasarwe told the ABC.
Crying, he asked people in Melbourne to help police find his niece’s killer.
“We suffer as a family if we don’t know who did this thing, and if he will not be punished, this will be too much suffering for us,” he said.
Another uncle, Abed Kittani, said the family was struggling to deal with the news.
“The feeling of the family is very, very bad,” he said. “The mental state of the mother and the sister is the worst it can be.”
“The tragedy and the horror isn’t easy to bear.
“This happened very far away. How did this family end up facing this tragedy?”
Mr Kittani said Ms Maasarwe’s younger sister was speaking to her on the phone at the moment she was attacked, and watched news of her death spread via the internet.
Read the article by Eric Tlozek in The New Daily.