By David Sophrin
Impunity Watch Reporter, Europe

KIEV, Ukraine – The body of a missing Jewish student from a Kiev Chabad yeshiva, who had been missing for over two weeks, was found yesterday.

The remains of Aryeh Leib Mizenson, 25, who had disappeared on April 20, were found in the Ukrainian capital.  The police had to used DNA testing to determine the identity of the body, which was found dismembered.

Antisemitic sentiment within the active Ukrainian neo-Nazi community is suspected to have played a role in Mizenson’s death.  Local law enforcement officials have detained a member of a local neo-Nazi gang in connection with his death.  The fact that the day of his disappearance, April 20, is the anniversary of Adolph Hitler’s death, is not believed to be a coincidence.  Acts of violence against Jewish targets have been carried out by neo-Nazi groups in the past in the area.

Yaakov Zilberman, a leading member of Kiev’s Jewish community believes that antisemitism played a role in the killing.  “Many Jews here are confronted by groups of skin-heads wearing Nazi uniforms at metro stations in central Kiev.  The skin-heads walk around without fear in the center of town and no one says a word.”

The chief Ukrainian rabbi, who was out of the country at the time that Misenzon’s body was found, announced that he would return to Ukraine for the student’s funeral.

Law enforcement officials have requested that the Misenzon’s family delay his burial until the investigation can be completed.

For more information, please see:

HAARETZ – Body of Ukrainian Jew missing since Hitler’s birthday found in Kiev – 9 May 2010

INDYPOSTED – Dismembered Body of Ukrainian Jew Found In Kiev – 9 May 2010

JERUSALEM POST – Yeshiva student murdered in Ukraine – 9 May 2010

YNEWSNET – Jewish man murdered in Kiev; Chabad: Anti-Semites did it – 9 May, 2010