Killer Says He Meant to Maim Rabin

At the start of his trial Tuesday, Yitzhak Rabin’s assassin admitted that he fatally shot the Israeli prime minister after a Tel Aviv peace rally last fall but said he is not guilty of premeditated murder because he would have been just as happy to paralyze his victim.

Yigal Amir, a 25-year-old Jewish law student, pointed out to the three-judge panel in Tel Aviv district court that he had aimed his pistol at Rabin’s spinal cord, “at the seam of the suit,” rather than at the prime minister’s head.

“I did not mean to murder Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin the man. I meant, as a prime minister, to remove him from the road,” Amir said. “The goal was to stop his political activity. My intention was to shoot him in such a way that would prevent him from serving as prime minister, either by paralysis or, for lack of another choice, by death.”

When Judge Edmond Levy asked why Amir had fired three times, the defendant said, “Just to make sure that I hit him.”

Amir appeared to be hoping for a manslaughter conviction, which carries a maximum 20-year sentence rather than the mandatory life sentence of a premeditated murder conviction. But his two-lawyer defense team was clearly at odds over the strategy, with American attorney Jonathan Ray Goldberg reportedly aiming for an insanity plea and Israeli lawyer Mordechai Ofri apparently opting for the manslaughter approach and threatening to quit over the issue.

Goldberg handed the judge a paper in court that Israeli radio said was a request for a psychiatric evaluation of Amir.

Ofri told the judge that he would quit the case, and he said later on Israeli television, “So long as there are additional parties in this case who wish to handle the case in a manner which contradicts the professional manner and direction I feel are appropriate, then I will not continue even if Yigal asks me to.”

Amir’s answers to the charges made it appear that he agreed with Ofri’s approach. But Israeli radio and television suggested that the money that has been raised in the United States and elsewhere for Amir’s defense is earmarked for Goldberg, who is known in right-wing political circles.

Judge Levy gave Amir five days to sort out his defense problems and ordered him to tell the court who is representing him when the trial resumes Sunday.

The confessed killer has said that he shot Rabin on Nov. 4 to stop the Israeli leader from violating Jewish law by trading West Bank land for peace with the Palestinians. Many devout Jews believe the West Bank is a biblical inheritance from God.

Amir was not as cocky or chipper in court Tuesday as he had been in pretrial appearances, but he was just as resolute about his deed. Looking tired and slightly hunched, he once again justified the killing on religious grounds and made a point of telling the judge that he had no regrets.

Family members, media and Rabin confidant Eitan Haber were among those who packed the courtroom and remained silent, trying to grasp each of Amir’s quick, soft-spoken words from the dock.

In answering the charge sheet, Amir confirmed that his older brother, Hagai, had hollowed out the bullets used on Rabin--an alteration that made them more deadly--but he denied that either Hagai or their friend Dror Adani was part of a conspiracy. All three face conspiracy charges in a separate trial.

The judge noted that Amir claimed no alibi, and the prosecution said that in light of Amir’s confession, it would significantly reduce the number of witnesses it had planned to call.

The first four to testify were police officers on duty at the rally that night or who took Amir’s confession after the assassination. One of them, Nissim Daudi, recalled that Amir had been “very much at peace with what he did” and provided details of previous plans to kill Rabin.

Another, Yoav Ganot, said that when he told Amir that Rabin was dead, the gunman responded: “Great. Whoever is responsible for the death of Jews deserves this.”

Meanwhile, Israeli newspapers Tuesday published excerpts of transcripts from Amir’s interrogations by General Security Service agents. In them, Amir explained that he would have no problem killing “babies and children as it is written in [the biblical book of] Joshua” in the name of conquering land for Israel.

On a personal note, Amir told his interrogators that he had a couple of criteria for assessing young women as prospective girlfriends, including whether they shared his admiration for Baruch Goldstein, the Jewish settler who massacred about 30 Arabs praying at Hebron’s Cave of the Patriarchs in February 1994 and was subsequently killed.

“To get to know a person, I usually ask one question: ‘What do you think about Baruch Goldstein?’ That tells me if a girl is attractive or shallow. According to that, I see how she is. Contact lenses are also a criterion for a girl. Anything artificial on a girl, that’s not good.”

Times staff writer Marjorie Miller reported from Jerusalem and researcher Efrat Shvily from Tel Aviv.