3 Jewish Terrorists Get Life, 12 Others Receive Light Terms : Court in Israel Issues Sentences for Anti-Arab Attacks

Three members of a Jewish terror underground were sentenced to life in prison today for murder but 12 others received light terms--four months to seven years--for waging a deadly campaign against Arabs in Israeli-occupied territories.

A three-judge panel had no leeway in pronouncing sentence on three members of the group convicted of murder for a 1983 attack on the Islamic College in Hebron, where three Arab students were killed. Israeli law mandates life in prison for anyone convicted of murder.

The other dozen defendants, found guilty on charges ranging from causing grievous bodily harm to conspiracy, each could have been sentenced to 20 years in prison. But the court, ending one of the most divisive trials in Israeli history, proved lenient.

Supporters Cheer

Supporters of the defendants who packed the East Jerusalem courtroom whooped with joy at the light sentences.

Almost all the defendants--wearing yarmulkes, sport shirts and jeans--smiled and hugged their wives and lawyers when the sentences were announced.

The life sentences were imposed on underground leader Menachem Livni, 38, Uzi Sharabaf, 23, and Shaul Nir, 31, for the July, 1983, attack. Three Arab students were killed and 40 wounded when settlers stormed the campus with machine guns and grenades.

Other charges stemmed from a 1980 attempt to assassinate three Arab West Bank mayors, an attempt the same year to bomb five Arab buses in East Jerusalem and an unsuccessful 1984 plot to blow up the Dome of the Rock mosque on Temple Mount--a Jerusalem landmark sacred to both Jews and Muslims.

7-Year Sentence

The only seven-year sentence went to Yehuda Etzion, mastermind of the plot to blow up the Dome of the Rock.

Moshe Zar, who participated in a car bombing that blew the legs off an Arab mayor, received only four months because the judge took into account his 90% disability from the 1967 Six Day War. Because of time served, Zar is now free.

Another 10 of the 27 Jews arrested and charged with terrorism in April, 1984, were sentenced earlier for minor offenses in the Dome of the Rock plot. Two others have had their trials postponed.

The sentencing ended one of the longest and most controversial trials in Israel’s history, pitting the most militant of Jewish settlers on the occupied West Bank against the Israeli legal system in the 13-month proceeding.

Campaign for Pardons

Long before the verdicts were handed down, a campaign was under way to win government pardons for the 15.

Foreign Minister Yitzhak Shamir and leading members of his right-wing Likud Bloc have already said they would seek presidential pardons for the accused. President Chaim Herzog has said he would examine individual clemency appeals on merit after the sentencings.

The defendants contended they organized the underground, the largest anti-Arab terror ring in Israel’s history, because the army was not protecting them in the West Bank, where Jews began settling after Israel won the area from Jordan in the 1967 war.