INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Image copyrightVictoria PoliceImage caption
Police released these images of Aiia Maasarwe, taken on the night she was
killed
A man has been arrested over the killing of a 21-year-old Israeli student in Melbourne, Australian police say.The
body of Aiia Maasarwe, 21, was found near La Trobe University in the city's north
She had taken a tram home late on Tuesday after a comedy show.She was attacked while speaking on the phone to her sister, authorities said.A
20-year-old man was arrested in a nearby suburb on Friday
Victoria Police did not immediately provide further details but thanked the public for their help.Earlier, detectives said they were not
ruling out the possibility that Ms Maasarwe had been sexually assaulted before her killing."Our presumption at this stage is that this was a
random attack and opportunistic," Inspector Andrew Stamper told reporters on Thursday.The killing has caused widespread outrage in
Australia, sparking renewed anger and debate about violence against women
Image copyrightAiia Maasarwe / InstagramImage caption
Ms Maasarwe was on an exchange programme at La Trobe University
Hundreds of people had attended a vigil at La Trobe University, local media reported, with a larger vigil scheduled for central
Melbourne on Friday night.Ms Maasarwe's sister, worried about Aiia, is reported to have called Australian police around the same time the
body was found on Wednesday morning outside a shopping centre.In their previous call, she had "heard the sound of the phone falling to the
ground and heard some voices", Insp Stamper said.Ms Maasarwe was a student of Chinese and English at a university in Shanghai, her uncle,
Abed Katane, told Israeli media
She was on an exchange programme at La Trobe, he said."She was an excellent student, full of life
She wasn't in a very dangerous country at all, and yet we are still receiving such a painful message," Mr Katane told the Haaretz
newspaper.Aiia Maasarwe's father has arrived to identify the body, which the Israeli embassy said it would assist with returning to
Israel.A black cap emblazoned with "1986" and a grey t-shirt were found near the crime scene, and were being forensically tested
Police also scoured CCTV footage for clues.Image copyrightEPAImage caption
Flowers have been left at the scene where the
body of the Israeli student was found
Last June the killing of 22-year-old comedian Eurydice Dixon also generated much
Ms Dixon was raped and killed while walking home after a performance in Melbourne.That followed a similar case in 2012, when Irish woman
Jill Meagher was raped and murdered in Melbourne's inner north while walking home - prompting mass rallies to remember her and raise the
Australia's human rights commission has said that the country has "a disturbingly high rate of violence against women".According to
government figures, one in five women, and one in 20 men, have experienced sexual violence or threats since the age of 15
Melbourne, Australia's second-largest city, draws large numbers of foreign students to its many universities
More than 200,000 students came to the state of Victoria in 2017 to study, according to the state government
