Sentiment has been mounting for capital punishment in Israel and Justice Minister Avraham Sharir added his voice Thursday in support of the death penalty for “very serious crimes.”
He told reporters it should apply not only to Arab terrorists but to Jews convicted of crimes such as rape and murder or the kidnap-killing of a child.
“I am under the impression that the effect of the present punishment has eroded,” Sharir said, referring to the current maximum penalty for crimes in Israel, life imprisonment. He stressed that the nationality and religion of the criminal was irrelevant.
Demands for capital punishment rise every time a terrorist commits murder. The last person executed in Israel was Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann, who was hanged in 1961.
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.
