The suspect in the May 1 murder of 20-year-old Shelly Dadon of Afula was named Sunday as 34-year-old Hussein Yusuf Halifa, a taxi driver from the northern Israeli Arab village of I'billin.
Dadon was found stabbed to death in an abandoned parking lot in Migdal Haemek.
Halifa was arrested last month by Northern District Central Division Police and the Shin Bet Security Agency, but the details of the case were under a gag order until Sunday.
"The suspect drives people to work every day in the Ramat Gavriel industrial area in Migdal Haemek," said Northern District commander Maj. Gen. Zohar Dvir.
"That morning, he picked up Shelly, who was on the way to a job interview in the industrial area, and then murdered her in a deserted parking lot nearby. The motive has still not been completely clarified, but we are not yet ruling out a nationalistic [reason]."
Dvir said the suspect was caught, confessed and helped reconstruct the details of the crime, and the investigation is ongoing.
The Shin Bet believes the murder had nationalistic motives. At the police's request, the Nazareth Magistrates' Court partially lifted the publication ban on the case, allowing some of the details of the investigation to be released to the public.
Confessed, then denied
Dadon left her house at 7 a.m. on May 1 and made a phone call to a cousin just after 8 a.m. The details of the call are under a gag order, but it is believed that Dadon was in distress when she made it. Shortly afterward, she was dead.
Halifa was arrested three weeks ago. Soon after his arrest, he confessed to the murder and re-enacted the details for the police, but later on, he retracted his confession. "They framed me," Halifa said at his last arraignment hearing.
Halifa's lawyer, Ahmed Roslan said his client denies having committed the crime. In the coming days, Halifa will be indicted at the Nazareth District Court.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke with the Dadon family on Sunday.
"It is important to fend off any attempts to undermine the safety of Israel's citizens," he said.
Public Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovitch called on Israelis to act "responsibly and with restraint."
Meanwhile the Dadon family, who received the news on mother Ilana Dadon's birthday, says there is no doubt that the murder was nationalistically motivated.
"I said from the beginning that my daughter was murdered in a taxi, she did not hitchhike," Shelly's father Yaakov Dadon said during a press conference organized by the family.
"I knew from the beginning that my daughter is well-behaved. She got into the wrong cab, and this killer murdered her cruelly -- I can't believe that a human being could do such a thing.
"I want every young woman to learn a lesson from this: Before getting into a taxi, check who the driver is. I want them to announce that this was a nationalistically motivated murder. It cannot be that a girl who never hurt a fly went to find a job, and returned in a coffin."
Ilana expressed her pain as well, saying, "They took the crown of our home, my princess. I want the murderer to be punished to the full extent of the law."
The family's attorney, Amir Bar Dayan, said in a statement, "We have no doubt that the motive for the murder was nationalistic. We know this from evidence that the Dadon family and I have been informed of, but that has not been released to the media."
