An AIDS-infected professor spent the last year of his life advertising for sex, spreading the deadly virus and videotaping the men he slept with in a macabre act of vengeance, police say.

The man, Yeshayahu Demner, was found murdered a week ago.Demner's hundreds of potential victims may have included Palestinians, U.S. sailors and his students from the Technion engineering university, police investigators told The Associated Press Monday.

But there was no evidence Demner sought to infect Arabs or members of any specific group, said police sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Police suspect the engineering professor - described by students as a reserved, kindly man - was bludgeoned to death by a man he infected with the AIDS virus.

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The case has stunned Israel, with gay activists fearing their struggle for acceptance in a conservative society has been set back years. Some lawmakers pressed for a crackdown against people with AIDS.

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