Premier Shimon Peres’ formal request to Attorney General Yitzhak Zamir for a legal opinion on the possibility of reprieve for members of an alleged Jewish terrorist underground is expected to take some of the heat out of the issue which threatens a confrontation between the Labor and Likud components of the national unity coalition government.
Peres’ written request was received last Friday. Officials at the Attorney General’s office said yesterday that work on a legal opinion was begun before the request arrived — after an informal discussion between Peres and Zamir earlier last week.
Legal observers expect Zamir to preclude the idea of dropping charges against the Jewish defendants presently on trial or awaiting trial. Of the 27 persons accused of membership in a Jewish terrorist underground responsible for acts of violence and conspiracy against Arab civilians in the West Bank over a four-year period, 10 have been tried and sentenced, most of them after plea bargaining. One man has completed his sentence and has been released. Two army officers are awaiting trial.
The remaining defendants are being tried in Jerusalem district court by a panel of three judges. The release on May 20 of 1,150 Palestinian prisoners, many of them serving life sentences for murder, in exchange for three Israeli soldiers held captive by a Palestinian terrorist group in Damascus, triggered demands from Jewish settlers in the West Bank and other militants for the immediate release of the defendants and the Jews already convicted.
Likud politicians, including Deputy Premier Yitzhak Shamir, have gone on record in favor of reprieve or amnesty for the accused Jews. Shamir stressed that this should be done through the chanels provided by law.
BEGIN HELPS TO DEFUSE THE TENSION
Former Premier Menachem Begin helped defuse the tension surrounding the issue when he said in a newspaper interview published yesterday that he felt a reprieve should be considered, but only after the defendants were tried and sentenced.
That has been the position, too, of President Chaim Herzog whose exclusive prerogative it is to weigh reprieve. Herzog swiftly rejected the contention by some legal sources that he could exercise that prerogative before sentences are passed.
He has let it be known that he would consider applications for reprieve only after the judicial process has run its full course — meaning after trial and sentencing. He is supported in this by Justice Minister Moshe Nissim, a Likud Liberal.
Herzog has made it clear, moreover, that he would be prepared to entertain applications for clemency on an individual basis only, as is standard practice. He has said he would not consider a collective reprieve for the entire group of accused, as some of their supporters are demanding.
But there is strong opposition in leftist circles for any kind of clemency as a quid pro quo for the controversial prisoner exchange. The opposition Mapam and Citizens Rights Movement (CRM) have introduced motions in the Knesset for the creation of a commission of inquiry into the Lebanon war. This apparently is intended to embarrass Likud if it presses for clemency for the alleged Jewish terrorist underground members.
There is strong sympathy within the Labor Party for this tactic. But Premier Shimon Peres is opposed to such an approach. He has indicated that he personally does not favor an official inquiry into the Lebanon war, at least at this time. He is understood to be urging the Labor Knesset faction to allow its members to vote their conscience when the Mapam and CRM motions come up Wednesday.
It is almost certain that a Knesset decision to set up an inquiry — or even a Labor vote en-bloc for such a proposal — would spell the end of the unity coalition government. Shamir, the Likud leader, has made that clear.
Peres wants to keep the coalition alive for the present. Moreover, he is said to feel that an inquiry would focus attention on individuals responsible for the Lebanon war and thereby deflect what Peres believes should be the political blame for the war from attaching to the entire Likud party.
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