The Supreme Court adjourned its hearing in the case of William Nakash Monday without rendering a decision on whether or not he should be extradited to France for the crime of murder. The five-member panel of justices, headed by Court President Meir Shamgar, will reconvene but no date was announced.
Nakash will remain in custody pending a decision. The hearing is on an appeal by the Civil Rights Movement (CRM) and a group of Hebrew University law professors against Justice Minister Avraham Sharir’s rejection of the extradition request.
Nakash was sentenced in absentia by a French court to life imprisonment for the 1984 murder of an Algerian Arab, Abdelali Hakkar, in Besancon, a provincial city southeast of Paris. His fight against extradition is supported by Orthodox Jews and rightwing nationalist elements here who say the killing was an act of self-defense against an Arab terrorist.
Sharir’s decision not to extradite was based on Nakash’s claim that his life would by endangered by Arab prisoners if he served his sentence in France. Deputy State Attorney Nilli Arad who appeared before the Supreme Court on behalf of the Justice Ministry was pressed by Shamgar and other justices Monday to explain how Sharir reached that conclusion.
Arad said the Minister had carefully “weighed and examined” the circumstances. To which Shamgar replied, “He may have weighed but he did not balance.”
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