Nepal police search river for body of murdered American teacher

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/08/nepal-police-search-river-murdered-american-teacher

Version 0 of 1.

Police in Nepal are searching a river where they say the body of a teacher from Austin, Texas, was dumped after she was killed.

Authorities are scouring the Seti river for the body of Dahlia Yehia, who was in her 20s and disappeared last month from the resort town of Pokhara in western Nepal, said police official Hari Bahadur Pal.

Police have arrested a local teacher, Narayan Paudel, who was hosting Yehia while she was in Pokhara to help victims of April’s earthquake.

Pal said Paudel confessed to the crime and described how he hammered the victim to death and threw her body into the river. Pal said police found clothes and ropes they believed were used to tie Yehia’s body.

Pal said authorities plan to seek life imprisonment for Paudel, 30, but that they need the body to help build a strong case.

Yehia had arrived in Nepal in July and reached Pokhara on 4 August. She was staying with Paudel and was killed three days later, Pal said. Paudel was arrested on 2 September and confessed the next day, he added.

Authorities believe the motive behind the murder was money, with Paudel saying he took cash from Yehia, according to Pal.

Following the earthquake on 25 April, which killed nearly 9,000 people and damaged hundreds of thousands of houses in Nepal, aid groups and individuals rushed to the south Asian country to help the victims.