3 Israelis Given Life Terms for Killing Arabs

A Jerusalem court Monday sentenced three members of the so-called Jewish Underground terrorist group to mandatory life terms for murder but imposed relatively light terms ranging from four months to seven years on 12 other convicted anti-Arab conspirators.

The defendants, their families and their friends smiled, embraced and even sang as the crowded East Jerusalem courtroom turned festive after the three-judge panel pronounced sentence. Several Underground members gave post-sentencing television interviews from the chairs vacated by the judges.

Far Less Than Maximum

Israeli law requires a life sentence for a murder conviction. But the sentences were far less than the maximum prescribed for the other crimes--ranging from attempted sabotage to attempted murder--of which the men were convicted. Eleven of the 12 convicted of lesser crimes on July 11 could have been given 20-year sentences on at least one count; the 12th man could have gotten 10 years’ imprisonment.

One of the defendants left the courtroom Monday as a free man because of the jail time he had already served. Four others expect to be released in nine months, given the Israeli policy of almost automatically granting time off for good behavior in prison.

Nonetheless, leaders of the West Bank Jewish settlement movement and rightist Israeli politicians pledged to press immediately for pardons for the defendants. All of them have been part of the settlement movement in the West Bank, which Israel captured from Jordan during the 1967 Six-Day War.

“I am now drafting a bill for a specific, special pardon to the members of the Jewish Underground,” said Chaim Kaufman, chairman of the rightist Likud bloc’s parliamentary caucus.

“There is no doubt that even though I am against the actions of this group and believe that they violated the law and did something they shouldn’t have, it is a special case against the backdrop of the security situation that existed and still exists in Judea and Samaria (the biblical names for the West Bank preferred by many Israelis),” Kaufman said.

Even some of Kaufman’s fellow Likud members oppose special legislation as a dangerous infringement of the pardon power, which under the current legal system can be exercised only by the country’s president. It appeared doubtful Monday that a majority could be found to pass such a bill.

Israel radio reported that Likud leader Yitzhak Shamir, who is both foreign minister and alternate prime minister in the national unity coalition government, would meet with Justice Minister Moshe Nissim to discuss ways of freeing the Underground members.

Pressure on President

Others pledged to press President Chaim Herzog to use his pardon power to free the group immediately. Herzog’s office said Monday that appeals by individual members of the Underground will be treated the same as those by any other criminal.

During the 13-month trial, one of the most politically explosive in the history of the state, the court refused to hear defense arguments that the defendants had acted in self-defense because the authorities failed to provide adequate protection against Arab terrorist attacks on Jewish settlers in the West Bank.

In commenting on the sentences Monday, however, Judge Shmuel Finkelman said, “This is a special group which cannot be compared to any other terror group.” He then commented on the exemplary military records of several defendants.

In his confession, Underground ringleader Menachem Livni said he picked people to join him who hated bloodshed because he didn’t want anyone to enjoy the terrorist attacks. “They wanted everyone to know that what they are doing is a job that is to be done, but not to enjoy it,” commented Livni’s lawyer, David Rotem, in an interview.

3 Convicted of Murder

Livni, 38, was one of the three men convicted of murder for the 1983 gun and grenade attack on the Islamic College in Hebron that left three Palestinian Arab students dead and 33 others wounded. The others convicted of murder were Uzi Sharabaf, 23, and Shaul Nir, 31.

Although a life sentence is mandatory in murder convictions here, no one is believed ever to have served out such a term, legal experts said. The practice has been for the president to weigh an appeal for clemency after seven years of a life term. The sentence is then reduced to a fixed term of years, with parole possible after two-thirds of the altered sentence is served.

“In the court, I learned about the difference between law and justice,” Livni told reporters Monday. “The court told us that it is responsible to the law, but not to justice. It isn’t fair and moral that government abandons the life of her sons to terror, to murder . . . and when they defend themselves, the government puts them in jail.”

Mother Begins Singing

As the judges left the courtroom, Aviva Nir, mother of convicted murderer Shaul Nir and his brother, Barak, who received a six-year sentence for manslaughter and attempted murder, got up on a bench and began singing a Jewish nationalist song.

“I am very proud of my sons,” Aviva Nir told reporters. “They are the heroes of the state of Israel.” She said God would pardon them.

Among those who shook hands with the defendants and slapped them jovially on the back were some of the uniformed policemen on duty to keep order in the court.

In all, 27 Jews were arrested in April, 1984, for a series of terrorist acts against Arabs in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. The trial of two army officers has been postponed. Ten others were convicted earlier under plea-bargaining arrangements. They received sentences ranging from 11 months to 10 years, and two have already been freed.

Two other suspected members of the Underground are still being sought, including one now living in the United States.