JERUSALEM, May 6 (UPI) -- The son of a prominent Israeli rabbi has been charged with kidnapping and beating a young man who had become friends with his sister.
The Jerusalem Post reports that Meir Amar, his mother, Mazal, and his sister, Ayala, were arrested Thursday night. The mother allegedly asked her son to punish the victim.
Chief Sephardic Rabbi Shlomo Amar has been out of the country and is not a suspect.
Police say that Ayala Amar became friendly with the 17-year-old, described as an ultra-Orthodox Jew, over the Internet and arranged to meet her. Her relatives became angry because their religious views bar casual contact between unmarried men and women.
Meir Amar allegedly kidnapped the victim and took him to a village outside Jerusalem where he was savagely beaten and then to the Amar home, where he was beaten again. The hospital where the victim was treated reported the beating to the police.
