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Three detained after Christian leader murdered in Israel

Israel Materials 7 January 2012 12:03 (UTC +04:00)

Israeli police were following several leads in the fatal stabbing of a senior figure in Jaffa's Christian community, and have detained three persons for questioning, the Israel Ynet news site reported Saturday morning, dpa reported.

A police spokesman could not be reached for confirmation.

Gabriel Cadis, chairman of the Jaffa Orthodox Church Association, was stabbed Friday night at the end of a procession by the Orthodox Christian community held along a Jaffa street to mark the Orthodox Christmas, which falls on January 7.

He was rushed to a nearby hospital, but was pronounced dead shortly after arrival.

One witness said a man wearing a Santa Claus suit stabbed Cadis in the back and then fled, swallowed up by the crowd.

The motive for the stabbing remained unclear Saturday. Investigators were looking into the possibility that Cadis was murdered over a real estate dispute, or because of tensions and power struggles in the Jaffa Orthodox Church Association.

Jaffa, a part of Tel Aviv, has a large Arab Christian community, many of them practitioners of the Orthodox faith.

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