{"id":665355,"date":"2026-05-12T05:28:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-12T05:28:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/665355\/"},"modified":"2026-05-12T05:28:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-12T05:28:08","slug":"isla-bell-manslaughter-charge-dropped-against-man-accused-of-killing-melbourne-teen-and-hiding-body-in-fridge-victoria","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/665355\/","title":{"rendered":"Isla Bell: manslaughter charge dropped against man accused of killing Melbourne teen and hiding body in fridge | Victoria"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Prosecutors have withdrawn a manslaughter charge against a man who had been accused of killing a 19-year-old woman and hiding her body in a fridge.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Marat Ganiev, 55, was accused of killing Isla Bell in the early hours of 7 October 2024, before hiding her body in a fridge.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Her remains were found at a rubbish tip in Melbourne\u2019s south-east six weeks later.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Ganiev was originally charged with murder but that was downgraded to manslaughter as the case entered the Victorian supreme court.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Crown prosecutor Jeremy McWilliams on Tuesday told the court the manslaughter charge against Ganiev had also been withdrawn.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Ganiev will instead be charged with attempting to pervert the course of justice, with a fresh indictment expected to be filed later on Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">A new trial date is yet to be set but a summary of the allegations will be served to defence within the next fortnight.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Eyal Yaffe, 59, was also originally accused of assisting an offender and attempting to pervert the course of justice in relation to Bell\u2019s death.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">McWilliams on Tuesday also confirmed Yaffe\u2019s charges would be discontinued.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Yaffe declined to comment as he used crutches to walk out of court a free man.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">A spokesperson for the Office of Public Prosecutions confirmed the charges had been withdrawn due to \u201cinsufficient evidence\u201d to support the offences.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Prosecutors have withdrawn a manslaughter charge against a man who had been accused of killing a 19-year-old woman&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":665356,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,44],"class_list":["post-665355","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/665355","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=665355"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/665355\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/665356"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=665355"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=665355"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=665355"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}