The ABC can reveal Eyal Yaffe previously served time for assaulting and choking a woman who he threatened to 'stuff in a suitcase'.
A man who moved a fridge containing Melbourne teen Isla Bell 's body served time for assaulting and choking a woman who he threatened to "stuff in a suitcase".
Eyal Yaffe was facing a charge of attempting to pervert the course of justice over Ms Bell's death but prosecutors last week dropped the case. A man who moved a fridge containing Melbourne teen Isla Bell's body was once jailed for a "disgraceful" attack against a woman, which involved strangulation and threats to stuff the victim in a suitcase.
The ABC can reveal details of Eyal Yaffe's criminal past, following the Office of Public Prosecutions' decision to drop a charge of attempting to pervert the course of justice in connection to Ms Bell's death in 2024. Yaffe was charged after taking a fridge with Ms Bell's body inside from the home of Marat Ganiev, who wasLast year, Yaffe's lawyers said he did not know human remains were inside the fridge when he shifted it from Mr Ganiev's property.
In a separate case, Yaffe was jailed for three years and nine months over attacks on a woman that were described by Judge Martine Marich as "disgraceful". Yaffe pleaded guilty to smashing his way into a woman's home while a six-month-old baby was inside on September 28, 2019.
"You then threatened to stuff her into a suitcase and make her disappear, then you grabbed a rope from a silk robe, wrapped it around neck, and strangled her," the judge said in sentencing remarks delivered in 2021. Yaffe smashed the woman's head into a window frame, causing her to black out and then cut her arm with a piece of broken glass.
He pulled out an imitation firearm and threatened the woman, telling her: "I'll make you suffer and die.
" Eyal Yaffe was sentenced to more than three-and-a-half years in jail for assaulting and returning to threaten a woman in 2019. Yaffe broke into the property the following month, forcing the woman to barricade herself and the baby in a bedroom. He was arrested by police but denied any wrongdoing, claiming the allegations against him were made up.
When the case reached the County Court, Yaffe pleaded guilty to charges including intentionally causing injury, making threats to kill, criminal damage, weapons and drugs offences and handling stolen goods. During the 2019 incidents, Yaffe was out on bail and was facing charges for previous attacks against the same woman, which he eventually pleaded guilty to.
"Though you were on bail, that undertaking did not deter you from committing any of these disgraceful acts," Judge Marich said. Yaffe's sentence included a minimum term of two years and four months before being eligible for parole. With time already served, the earliest he could have been released back into the community was in June 2022. Born in Jerusalem, he served in the Israeli military between the ages of 18 to 21 and was involved in combat.
He moved to Japan in 1991 and came to Australia with his ex-wife in 1993. Yaffe owned a wholesale jewellery business in Caulfield before the business collapsed, and he went into partnership with a local coffee shop. Yaffe's continuous drug use landed him before the courts, with his criminal history dating back to 2002. He avoided jail after facing court in 2005, 2010, 2013 and 2017, before he was finally remanded into custody in 2019.
That year, Yaffe's psychiatrist wrote a letter to the magistrates' court confirming diagnoses of post traumatic stress disorder, depression and amphetamine misuse. Yaffe came to the attention of police investigating Isla Bell's disappearance in October 2024. Police said footage captured Ms Bell entering Marat Ganiev's St Kilda East home, but never coming out. Police initially alleged Mr Ganiev killed Ms Bell at the property.
Yaffe was seen bringing a fridge to the apartment and then leaving with an old fridge "wrapped in clear plastic". Police alleged he towed the fridge to Caulfield South and was then seen "extensively cleaning" items from his SUV and trailer. Mr Ganiev is then alleged to have shifted the fridge to several locations.
When Yaffe was arrested six weeks after Ms Bell's disappearance, he had a ticket booked to Bulgaria and had "significant unexplained wealth", which included expensive cars, designer jewellery and $150,000 in his bank account, police alleged in court documents. At a committal hearing last year, Yaffe's then-barrister Ian Hill KC argued the prosecution could not prove that he knew an unlawful killing had taken place when he transported the fridge containing Ms Bell's remains.
"There is no evidence that at any stage that he was exposed to what was inside the fridge," Mr Hill said. The Office of Public Prosecutions dropped a charge of assisting an offender against Yaffe after the committal, and discontinued his remaining charge last week, enabling him to leave court a free man. Prosecutors also downgraded Mr Ganiev's initial murder charge to manslaughter, but dropped that charge too.
He now faces one count of attempting to pervert the course of justice.
Eyal Yaffe Assault Threat To Kill Violence Against Women Supreme Court Of Victoria County Court Of Victoria Marat Ganiev
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