President Chaim Herzog Sunday pardoned another seven members of the General Security Services (Shin Bet), for involvement in the beating deaths of two Palestinian bus hijackers and in the coverup which followed. The decision followed the granting of immunity by Herzog to Avraham Shalom, who recently resigned as head of the Shin Bet, and three of Shalom’s aides for crimes connected with the 1984 killing of the two Palestinians, after the hijacked bus had been retaken. None of those pardoned had been charged with any crimes.
The President, in a statement explaining his action, said he had not consulted with either the Prime Minister or the Cabinet, as he had done in the case of Shalom and his senior aides. He said that instead he had acted at the recommendation of the Justice Minister, on the basis of the precedent he had set in granting the earlier pardons.
Herzog said he had pardoned the seven for reasons of state security and the public good, and on the basis of the earlier pardon for the four most senior Shin Bet officials. “It would not be right to differentiate between ranks and echelons,” he said. The names of the seven pardoned Sunday have not been disclosed.
REACTIONS TO THE NEW PARDONS
The new pardons were in general welcomed by politicians, government leaders and the public. Many said the move was possibly regrettable but inevitable in view of the earlier amnesties.
But Moshe Shahal said the President’s move only underlined the demand for a public inquiry into what has become known as the “Shin Bet affair”– in addition to the ongoing police investigation.
Civil Rights Movement MK Shulamit Aloni objected to the new pardons, saying the President’s action had made worthless any public or police inquiry into illegal and irregular actions of the Shin Bet in connection with the hijacked bus, the killing of the captured terrorists and the subsequent cover-up.
Tehiya MK Geula Cohen welcomed the amnesty and said the President should now pardon the members of the Jewish underground imprisoned for anti-Arab terrorist activities.
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