Turkish citizen indicted for TA ‘suitcase murder’
Eidan Damirhan, 47, accused of beating girlfriend to death and hiding her dismembered body parts in Tel Aviv trash bins
Gavriel Fiske is a reporter at The Times of Israel
A 47-year-old Turkish national has been charged with the murder of his girlfriend, Elona Denis, 46, a Romanian caregiver whose body parts he allegedly discarded in multiple sites around south Tel Aviv earlier this month.
Eidan Damirhan, a registered foreign worker, was indicted Tuesday in the Tel Aviv District Court for the crime, which the prosecution says took place on Saturday, August 3.
According to the prosecution, after an argument over the payment of rent for an apartment they shared, Damirhan beat Denis to death. He then used a knife to behead her and chop off her arms and legs. He left her torso in a suitcase near the old Central Bus Station and scattered her other body parts in a number of dumpsters in the south Tel Aviv area. The head has not been recovered.
The discovery of the victim’s dismembered body shocked the country, though working-class south Tel Aviv, home to a large population of foreign workers and asylum seekers, has seen violent crimes in the past.
The victim’s identification process was relatively easy, Tel Aviv police said at the time, since all foreign workers are required to provide Israeli authorities with identification information, including fingerprints and biometric details.
Damirhan was identified as the prime suspect in part with the help of Interpol, which had received a query about the victim’s disappearance from her relatives in Romania, who knew that he was her boyfriend, Channel 10 reported.
The suspect was apprehended at Ben Gurion Airport, a few days after Elona’s body parts were discovered, attempting to flee to Turkey. For that reason, along with the grisly nature of his crime, the prosecution recommended that Damirhan remain in custody until the case goes to trial.
Aaron Kalman contributed to this report.
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