An Israeli court has extended the detention of a Maryland teen-ager charged with murder.
During the next two weeks, the Justice Ministry is slated to decide whether to honor a formal extradition request for Samuel Sheinbein submitted last month by American officials.
Sheinbein, 17, fled to Israel in September, shortly after the body of 19-year- old Alfred Tello was found in a Maryland suburb.
Maryland police suspect that Sheinbein and another suspect killed Tello and dismembered his body with a saw.
Sheinbein hoped to escape trial in the United States by claiming Israeli citizenship through his father, who was born here and left in 1950.
Under Israeli law, a citizen cannot be extradited for a crime committed in another country.
But after pressure from the United States, Attorney General Elyakim Rubinstein recently stated that the citizenship law does not apply to Sheinbein.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
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.
