A former member of Israel’s domestic security service has denied that he killed two Palestinian terrorists after their capture in 1984.
Former Shin Bet official Ehud Yatom said this week that he never told newspapers that he smashed the heads of two Palestinians who were involved in an April 1984 bus hijacking.
In a meeting with Shin Bet head Ami Ayalon, Yatom said he was misquoted in a recent interview with the Israeli daily Yediot Achronot.
Four Palestinian terrorists hijacked an Egged bus in 1984, threatening to kill the passengers. During a rescue raid, two of the terrorists were killed, along with one passenger.
Two other hijackers were captured.
Yatom told Yediot in July that the two were taken from the bus and beaten.
“Everyone who was there — the army, civilians, the [Shin Bet] — beat them,” he said. “It was a spontaneous act following a long night of uncertainty about what was happening on the bus.”
Yatom also told the paper: “We put them in the van and drove off. On the way we received instructions from [Shin Bet Chief] Avraham Shalom to kill them, so we killed them.”
On Wednesday, the Prime Minister’s Office said in a statement that Yatom had been rebuked for speaking to the press without permission.
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.
