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Rabin Assassin to be Released from Solitary Confinement After 17 Years

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While still imprisoned, Rabin assassin Yigal Amir will no longer be forced to remain in solitary confinement.Yigal Amir, the infamous assassin of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, is set to be released from solitary confinement after seventeen years. Amir was placed in the extreme prison condition following his crime in 1995.

Israel’s Prison Service explained that, although he will no longer be in solitary, Amir will not be allowed to become part of an open wing where the prisoners are allowed to travel freely to and from their cells. Amir – who is serving a life sentence without parole – will instead be placed with several other prisoners in a locked cell, and he will have permission to walk around the prison yard for two hours daily. Under the new arrangement, Amir will be free to meet with other inmates, watch television, engage more frequently in phone calls, and enjoy an increased number of personal encounters with visitors.

Amir’s confinement to solitary conditions for the past seventeen years – mostly under 24-hour surveillance – was recommended by the Prisons Service and the police, who expressed concern that other prisoners might attempt to kill him in retaliation for the assassination. The authorities were also worried that Amir would spread his views to others.

Furthermore, Amir was considered a threat to the State because he has never displayed any regret for assassinating the Prime Minister. The Israel Prison Service decided to change his status after a district court ordered it to consider possible methods of easing the conditions under which Amir is held.

In 2006 Amir was transferred to the Rimonim prison near Netanya. While his solitary confinement was upheld there, the surveillance cameras were removed, and Amir was allowed to engage in limited interaction with other prisoners during ritual prayers and Torah studies. A number of months ago, Amir’s brother Hagai, who was convicted of abetting in the crime, was released from prison in May after serving 16-and-a-half years in solitary confinement for conspiring to murder Rabin. Upon his exit from jail, Hagai raised his hand in a victory sign and said, ‘I am proud of what I did, I have no regrets.’

The Amir brothers stated that the motivation for their act was to prevent the Israeli government from returning land in Judea and Samaria to the Arabs. The assassination of the head of the Jewish state by a fellow Jew threw Israel into a turmoil for a period and focused increased attention on the controversial idea of giving up land in exchange for a promise of peace that may be detrimental to Israel’s security.

In 2004, Hagai Amir made death threats against the then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon because of his plans to evacuate the Jewish population in the Gaza Strip and hand the area over to the Palestinians. He told his prison guards that he could arrange to have Sharon murdered.

In August 2004, Yigal Amir married Larisa Trembovler, a religious Jewish immigrant from the Soviet Union. The divorcee first met Amir when she visited him in prison, and she has stated that she supports the assassin ‘morally and politically.’

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