The Supreme Court ordered William Nakash to be held in custody Tuesday pending a hearing December 23 on a petition to overrule the decision by Justice Minister Avraham Sharir not to extradite him to France.
Nakash, 25, was sentenced in absentia to life imprisonment by a French court for the 1983 murder of an Arab in Bensacon in eastern France. A five member panel of the high court will hear the appeal filed by the Citizen Rights Movement (CRM).
The case has sharply divided opinion in Israel. Nakash, an Orthodox Jew, is supported by rightwing and religious elements who contend the murder was justified as an act of self-defense against anti-Semitic, anti-Israel acts by Arabs.
Liberal and leftwing circles note that the French court found Nakash to have committed a criminal act that had no bearing on the fact that he is a Jew and his victim was an Arab. They argue that Israel should not be turned into a “haven for criminals just because they happen to be Jews.” According to the French court that sentenced Nakash, the murder Stemmed from a quarrel between two business partners. Nakash did not appear in court Tuesday. His lawyer, Ronald Roth, told reporters that the Chief Rabbinate has forbidden Nakash to leave the country because it would make his wife an “aguna,” an abandoned woman according to religious law who could neither divorce him nor re-marry.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
