The Nation - News from April 12, 1988

A convicted murderer renounced his U.S. citizenship to fulfill a clemency agreement and boarded a flight to Israel, where he was once a pro-independence guerrilla. William Shapiro, 62, who has served 13 years of a life term, will finish his minimum 25-year sentence on a kibbutz, under an agreement between the Florida Board of Executive Clemency and the Israeli government. Shapiro was granted clemency because of his past ties to Israel’s Haganah, a secret military force that helped win Israeli independence. A Dade County Circuit Court jury convicted Shapiro in February, 1976, of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder in the death of Burt deWitt, a business partner. The prosecution contended he hired two men to do the killing.