World IN BRIEF : ISRAEL : Final Arguments in Rabin Killer’s Trial

In closing arguments wrapping up his two-month trial, attorneys for Yitzhak Rabin’s confessed assassin asked for a verdict of manslaughter, saying that he meant only to disable the prime minister when he shot him in the back after a peace rally Nov. 4. But prosecutors asked that Yigil Amir be convicted of premeditated murder and sent to prison for life. For the first time, Amir attorney Gabi Shahar also said that contradictions in the evidence had led him to believe that his client shot blanks at Rabin without knowing it, while someone else killed the prime minister. But Judge Edmond Levy, heading a panel of three magistrates, interrupted Shahar several times, at one point ordering him to “stop with the innuendoes.”