A prime suspect in the killing of Yitzhak Rabin told interrogators that Prime Minister Shimon Peres had been next in line for assassination, a police representative said on Thursday in a hearing at the Tel Aviv Magistrate's Court.
The suspect, Dror Adani, a student from the West Bank settlement of Beit Hagai, is accused of plotting to kill Rabin with the confessed assassin, Yigal Amir, and his brother, Hagai Amir. Adani denies the charges.Reading from the transcript of Adani's interrogation, Chief Inspector Aryeh Silberman said:
"He was asked: `I understand that your ultimate aim was to strike at both Rabin and Peres and in this way to stop the peace process.' His answer: `Let's say that they were both defined as murderers whose sentence is death, but we didn't decide who was first. Perhaps if we would have seen that Rabin is going easily, we would have continued on to Peres.' "
In another transcript read to the court, Adani said Yigal Amir had defined Rabin as a "pursuer" under Jewish law, or a mortal threat who should be killed. According to Jewish law, a person who pursues another with intent to kill can be slain in self-defense.
Amir has said he was required to kill Rabin because the prime minister was putting Jewish lives and land in jeopardy by handing over much of the West Bank to Palestinian self-rule, a step Amir said would lead to war.
"Yigal said that Rabin was subject to the judgment of the law of the pursuer and must be killed," Adani was quoted as saying. "We had ideas like attaching explosives to Rabin's car or attacking him with their weapon, with their pistol." He was referring to a pistol owned by Yigal Amir.
A lawyer for Adani told the court his client had consulted with an unidentified rabbi who heads a yeshiva about whether Rabin could be defined as a "pursuer" under Jewish law. "The unequivocal answer of that rabbi was that it is forbidden to murder a Jew, certainly not the prime minister," the lawyer said. "Dror gave this message to Yigal Amir."