Supreme Court rejects Rabin assassin’s appeal to lift prison restrictions
Top court upholds decision to limit privileges after Yigal Amir contacted far-right rapper in effort to form political party that would lobby for his release
The Supreme Court on Sunday rejected an appeal by the assassin of former prime minister Yitzhak Rabin that sought to lift prison restrictions imposed after he used his phone for political purposes.
Yigal Amir has been denied phone calls, family visits, conjugal visits, newspapers, and access to electrical appliances, as a result of his attempts to form a political party with a far-right rapper that would lobby for his freedom.
“The Supreme Court failed in its decision not to provide protection for individual rights. Unfortunately, no substantive hearing took place over Yigal Amir’s complaints. Indeed, [these are] terrible days,” his lawyer told reporters following the ruling, in a play on the Hebrew name for a new film about the Jewish extremist.
Amir appealed to the Supreme Court after the Lod District Court denied his plea.
Amir has been alone in his cell for years, but normally has had access to television and other privileges.
He was sentenced by the prison’s commander to seven days in solitary confinement in a cell with only basic amenities, after he made a call to Yoav Eliasi, a rapper and far-right activist known as “The Shadow.”
Amir asked Eliasi to help fight for his release. The rapper rejected his request.
In a recording of the phone call aired by a Channel 13 news show, Amir can be heard talking to Eliasi about efforts to establish a political party that would push for his release.
“I don’t think you’re the type of person I’m interested in developing a dialogue with,” Eliasi tells Amir.
According to Judge Ido Druyan-Gamliel, the conversation between Eliasi and Amir was “clearly concerned with political content,” and therefore there was no fault with the prison commander’s decision to deny rights to the prisoner.
In undercover footage aired by the network last month, dozens of activists were seen meeting at a synagogue in Jerusalem to fill out paperwork and gather the 120 signatures needed to register a party with the Knesset’s Central Elections Committee.
Among those seen in the footage are Amir’s wife, Larissa Trimbobler, and his brother and co-conspirator, Hagai, who was jailed for nearly 17 years for helping plot Rabin’s November 4, 1995, assassination.
The party, named “Nura Deliba,” which translates as “Fire of the Heart” in Aramaic, did not not end up registering to run in the September 17 elections.
In response to the restrictions, Amir went on a hunger strike for a week in August, which Trimbobler said was also designed to protest Amir’s detention in solitary confinement for years, which she claimed did not have court approval.
