ISRAEL BARS PROSECUTION OF AGENTS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000201130001-7
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 20, 2012
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: June 26, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/01/20: CIA-RDP90-00965R000201130001-7
"^TT F AP BARED'I
Israel Bars
Prosecution
Of Agents
Aide's Resignation
Averts Wider Probe
In Slaying of Arabs
By William Claiborne
Washington Poet Foreign Service
JERUSALEM, June 25-Amid
opposition protest and charges of a
Cabinet-sanctioned cover-up, Israeli
President Chaim Herzog today is-
sued blanket pardons to the chief of
Israel's secret security services and
three of his deputies who had been
accused of covering up the beating
deaths of two handcuffed Arab pris-
oners in 1984.
The security chief, Avraham
Shalom, resigned after all-night
talks with senior Cabinet ministers,
thereby allowing the government to
avoid an official inquiry that threat-
ened to embarrass Prime Minister
Shimon Peres and Foreign Minister
Yitzhak Shamir. Both had opposed
creation of a special commission to
investigate the potentially explosive
scandal.
Peres said he will set up a special
commission to determine future
conduct of agents of the Shin Bet,
or secret security services, "based
on the lessons of the past." But the
commission is not expected to have
the investigatory powers originally
sought by Attorney General Yosef
Harish or his predecessor, Yitzhak
Zamir, who was replaced after de-
manding a full-scale police investi-
gation into the affair.
Harish was quoted by state-run
Israeli television tonight as saying
he did not know about the pardon
compromise until after it was con-
cluded, but he added, "There is no
longer any point in continuing to
investigate this affair."
The cover-up of the killin of the
two captured Palestinian hijackers
was one of two major scan a is in-
volving Israeli intelligence in reccut
months. The other was the arrest in
the United States of Jonathan lay
Pollard, a U.S. -Navy civilian intel-
ligence analyst who pleaded guilty
earlier this month to participating
in an espionage conspiracy directed
by Israeli officials.
There have been suggestions by
senior Israeli officials that Yitzhak
Shamir, who was prime minister at
the time, knew about the cover-up
but failed to take action to prevent
it. Peres also was told of the cover-
up by the three dismissed aides of
Shalom more than six months ago,
but he rejected demands that
Shalom be suspended and investi-
gated by police, according to official
sources.
Herzog told reporters tonight
that he issued the pardons-which
grant the four men immunity from
prosecution-because the Shin Bet
affair was a "singular and exception-
al case."
"I did this with the purpose of
ending the witch hunt surrounding
this affair and to avert additional
serious harm to the security ser-
vices," he said.
Praising the Shin Bet's record in
combating terrorism, Herzog said,
"A situation was created where
[Shin Bet] people would have had to
face investigation without the abil-
ity to defend themselves unless
they disclosed security secrets of a
most grave nature. In this situation,
I saw before me first and foremost
the need to protect the good of the
public and the security of the coun-
try, and act as I acted."
Cabinet Secretary Yosi Beilin, in
a television interview, acknowl-
edged that there appeared to be no
precedent for issuing a pardon be-
fore charges had been placed, but
he said that "the situation where
the head of the Shin Bet was faced
with such an investigation is a
unique situation."
Leaders of four opposition par-
ties-Shinui, the Citizens' Rights
Movement, the communist Dem-
ocratic Front for Peace and Equal-
ity and the leftist Progressive List
for Peace-promptly introduced
parliamentary motions of no con-
fidence in the coalition government
headed by Peres, who is scheduled
to rotate posts with Shamir on Oct.
25 under the coalition agreement.
But there appeared little likelihood
that the Labor-Likud coalition's
narrow majority would unravel un-
less there were many Labor defec-
tions.
Some Labor Cabinet ministers,
who were not present when the
10-member "inner cabinet" ap-
proved the compromise arrange-
ment, questioned whether Herzog
had the authority to pardon persons
suspected of criminal acts but not
convicted or charged.
Immigrant Absorption Minister
Yaacov Tsur, a member of Peres'
Labor Alignment, called the par-
dons a "moral blow" to Israel and
Communications Minister Amnon
Rubenstein said they were "a very
undesirable precedent.n
[Chaim Zadok, a former justice
minister and prominent member of
Peres' Labor Party, criticized the
pardons, saying, "For the Shin Bet,
the lesson to be learned is that you
can commit serious crimes. For the
political echelon, the lesson is you
can do anything you please and will
not bear responsibility," The Asso-
ciated Press reported.]
The left-wing Mapam Party's
Yair Saban said of the decision, "I'm
afraid it's main aim is to cover the
political figures involved in the
scandal."
At the other end of the political
spectrum, Geula Cohen of the right-
ist Tehyia Party, said the slain cap-
tives "were terrorists who tried to
attack and kill dozens of people in a
bus." Noting that they belonged to
the Palestine Liberation Organiza-
tion, she said, "We are killing them
all over the world, and I hope we do
more of it."
The presidential pardons came as
an surprise; senior Cabinet minis-
ters had appeared resigned to hav-
ing some sort of special inquiry into
the alleged cover-up of the beating
deaths of the two Arab prisoners,
who died after security forces took
t/
Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/01/20: CIA-RDP90-00965R000201130001-7
 Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/01/20: CIA-RDP90-00965R000201130001-7
A
them off a hijacked bus in the Gaza
Strip on April 12, 1984. The Army
originally said the two had been
killed when troops assaulted the bus
they had hijacked, but a newspaper
later published photos of them be-
ing led from the bus on foot.
Three former aides of Shalom
had complained to Zamir that the
Shin Bet chief, who was at the
scene, ordered the handcuffed pris-
oners beaten to death and then di-
rected an elaborate cover-up that
involved suborning witnesses, fal-
sifying evidence and perjury before
two civilian investigating commis-
sions and an internal Shin Bet dis-
ciplinary court.
As Harish met with senior Cab-
inet ministers late last night, the
only unresolved questions appeared
to be how the inquiry commission's
deliberations would be kept secret
to safeguard operational procedures
of the Shin Bet and whether the
probe would reach the political lev-
el, including the prime minister's
office.
Cabinet Minister Ezer Weizman
has suggested that Shamir was
aware of all of the events surround-
ing the beating deaths and tacitly
approved a cover-up. Several Israeli
newspapers have said Shalom has a
letter from Shamir containing ap-
proval of a cover-up and that the
Shin Bet chief had planned to use it
as a basis of his claim that he had
official approval of his actions.
Shamir has not said whether he
approved of the handling of the case,
saying only that he "knew what a
prime minister had to know." He has
repeatedly said that he was opposed
to any inquiry whose findings would
be made public.
Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/01/20: CIA-RDP90-00965R000201130001-7