Israel’s 10-day man-hunt for a sniper who wounded six people netted a woman last night. The suspect, 38-year-old Sara Alkanowitz who immigrated from the Soviet Union three years ago, was remanded in custody for 15 days by a Tel Aviv magistrate this morning to undergo psychiatric tests.
Police arrested the suspect at her flat in Holon, south of Tel Aviv, where she was living alone. They found a .22 caliber rifle, more than 1000 rounds of ammunition and a specially-made handbag with built-in supports to hold the rifle steady. Apparently she fired the weapon through the handbag which was heavily padded to deaden the sound. A plastic device enabled her to pull the trigger without opening the bag, police said.
The bespectacled woman admitted ownership of the weapon and said she fitted out the lethal handbag but insisted she was innocent, police reported. They said, however, that ballistics tests made with bullets extracted from the victims showed they were fired from the suspect’s weapon. Three of the victims are still in serious condition in hospitals, one of them permanently paralyzed. They were all shot while riding in buses or waiting at bus stops in Tel Aviv’s southern suburbs.
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