Jewish Terrorist Granted Clemency in Israel

Israeli President Chaim Herzog has granted clemency to a member of a Jewish ring convicted of plotting terrorist attacks on Palestinian leaders, the president’s spokesman said Monday.

Uri Meir is to be freed from prison today, six months before completing a 13-month sentence, spokesman Ami Gluska said. Meir was granted clemency because he is recuperating from throat surgery and has expressed remorse for his actions, Gluska said.

Meir, 37, was among 25 members of the so-called Jewish Underground who were found guilty of waging a terror campaign in the occupied West Bank to avenge Arab terrorism against Israelis.

Three were convicted of murdering three Palestinian students in a 1983 attack on Hebron’s Islamic College. Others carried out car bombings that maimed two Palestinian mayors in 1980 and plotted to blow up the Dome of the Rock shrine in Jerusalem, one of Islam’s holiest sites. Two remaining defendants, both army officers, await trial in a military court.

Right-wing politicians have sought the early release of all 25. Foreign Minister Yitzhak Shamir said after the 13-month trial ended in July that the ring’s members were “good people who have erred in their ways.”

Herzog has refused to consider a mass pardon and said he would judge each clemency appeal on its merits.