Rabbi Eliezer Waldman, head of the Neer Yeshiva in Kiryat Arba, was arrested for questioning yesterday in connection with the Jewish terrorist underground. Waldman is a candidate for the Knesset on the list of the ultra-nationalist Tehiya Party. He occupies the fourth spot.
The institution he heads is a “yeshivat hesder” where observant soldiers combine religious studies with military training. Itim, the Israeli news agency, said today that Waldman was remanded in custody for 48 hours after being questined. He is suspected of having had prior information about alleged activities of the Jewish underground for which 25 suspects were indicted yesterday.
LEVINGER RELEASED FROM CUSTODY
Another Kiryat Arba rabbi, Moshe Levinger, who now lives in Hebron, was released from custody in Jerusalem today after II days’ detention. Levinger, a leader of the Gush Emunim, was questioned about the terrorist underground but no charges were brought against him.
27 PEOPLE NOW INDICTED
The State Attorney, meanwhile, filed charges today against two more suspects in the terrorist underground
One is accused of having used his position as an officer in the civil administration on the West Bank to supply information to Jewish terrorists who planned the car bombings that maimed two Arab mayors in June, 1980 and blinded a police sapper.
The other suspect is accused of failing to warn the authorities of the car bombings of which he had advance knowledge and failing to alert the sapper, Suleiman Hirbawi, an Israeli Druze, who he accompanied to the garage of Mayor lbrahim A-Tawil of El Bireh to defuse a bomb planted in the mayor’s car. Hirbwai was permanently blinded when the bomb exploded. The suspect was unharmed.
The El Bireh mayor escaped injury but his colleagues, Mayors Bassam Shaka of Nablus and Karim Khallaf of Ramallah were severely injured by bombs planted in their cars by alleged members of the terrorist underground. All of the indicted suspects are expected to remain in custody at least until next Wednesday at which time the State Attorney is expected to request that they be held without bail pending the outcome of their trials.
The courts have banned identification of the suspects to protect their families.
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.
