Yigal Amir, serving a life sentence for assassinating Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, said this week that he was pleased that the Israeli leader died.
Amir, a religious Jew who had confessed to the Nov. 4 fatal shooting of Rabin, made the remarks Sunday as he appealed his conviction to the Supreme Court.
“I am not sorry he is dead,” the 26-year-old Amir said.
He also said he believed that the peace policy of the Rabin government had endangered Jewish lives. Amir added that he was permitted under Jewish law to kill the prime minister.
The appeal requested that the murder charge be reduced to manslaughter.
Amir asked to address the court after his lawyers had argued that he was not psychologically stable.
But Amir maintained before the court that he was “balanced.”
A court-ordered psychiatric exam had found that Amir had no mental disturbance.
The lawyers also said a second gunman at the Nov. 4 Tel Aviv peace rally had shot and killed Rabin.
When asked why there was no evidence about a second gunman, one of the defense lawyers said, “Because no one tried to investigate this angle.”
The court will issue a ruling at a later date.
Amir was convicted in March. He was also separately charged, along with his brother Hagai Amir and friend Dror Adani, with conspiracy to assassinate the prime minister. That trial is under way in Tel Aviv District Court.
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