An Israeli Arab man who attempted to kidnap a young haredi woman in northern Israel earlier this month planned to sexually assault, prosecutors said Sunday, ruling out terrorism as a possible motive.

Fifty-one-year-old Enan Salah, a resident of the town of Yafa an-Naseriyye in the Galilee, was indicted Sunday, charged with attempted kidnapping with the intent to commit rape.

Salah was arrested on election day, November 1st, after he attempted to force a 22-year-old haredi woman in the city of Tiberias into his car. The woman resisted, throwing herself at the sidewalk to avoid being shoved into Salah’s car. Salah has worked for the past 17 years as a mechanic in a Tiberias garage.

Police initially suspected the incident was terror-related, and the case was transferred to the Shin Bet internal security agency.

But on Sunday, prosecutors explicitly ruled out terrorism as the motive, saying Salah was planning sexual assault, not a terror-related kidnapping.

Salah apparently planned the kidnapping in advance, removing the license plates from his vehicle before driving towards the city’s central station in search of a victim.

"I was walking on the street without a care. When I passed the car he just opened the back door and pushed me from his side towards the car," his would-be victim recalled.

"By the grace of God, I realized that he was trying to get me into the car, I came to my senses, I immediately confronted him and I flew onto the road and he entered a tool store. I immediately ran towards the central bus station, someone stopped me and told me, madam, are you calling the police now? I called the police, they questioned me and called a car. The second he left the tool shop I told the policeman to drive fast because he was trying to flee. The police arrested him."