Israel Rejects Citizenship Claim of U.S. Teenager

Israel’s attorney general on Sunday rejected the citizenship claim of an American teenager wanted for murder in Maryland and said the 17-year-old fugitive can be returned to the United States to stand trial.

U.S.-Israeli relations have been strained over the extradition case of Samuel Sheinbein, a high school senior from Silver Spring, Md., who fled to Israel last month to avoid prosecution.

Sheinbein and another youth are accused of killing Alfredo Tello Jr., 19, whose charred and dismembered body was found in the Washington suburb Sept. 18.

Although Sheinbein has never lived in Israel, he claimed to be a citizen on the basis of his father’s citizenship. Under Israeli law, a citizen cannot be extradited for prosecution of a crime committed in another country.

Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and American Jewish leaders had urged the Israeli government to return Sheinbein. As Israel investigated the claim, angry members of the U.S. Congress delayed the release of millions of dollars in U.S. aid to Israel.

Israeli officials had declared that they would not be pressured into handing over Sheinbein but had made it clear that they were searching for a legal way to extradite the youth. The case also has raised racial tensions between Jews and Hispanics in the United States, and caused consternation among Israelis who do not want their country used as a refuge for alleged Jewish criminals.

Israeli Atty. Gen. Elyakim Rubinstein issued a statement Sunday saying, “After a careful examination of the matter of citizenship, the position of the Ministry of Justice is that [Sheinbein] is not an Israeli citizen.”

Therefore, the statement said, “there is a basis to assume that the suspect can be extradited under the extradition law.”

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The attorney general’s statement did not explain on what grounds the ministry had determined that Sheinbein is not a citizen. Justice Ministry spokeswoman Etty Eshed said the arguments will be presented today at a hearing in Jerusalem to request the youth’s “arrest for extradition.” Until now, he has been held “for investigation.”

The United States provided Israel with hundreds of documents in the case, including depositions stating that Sheinbein’s family sought citizenship in the United States and other countries after leaving Israel in the 1950s. The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that the government has interpreted this to mean the Sheinbeins had no intention of returning to Israel and that the fact they had retained Israeli citizenship over the years was only a formality.

Sheinbein’s lawyer, former Justice Minister David Libai, disagreed with the attorney general’s ruling, which he called “a clear attempt to bypass Israeli law,” and said he will challenge it in court.

“Until today, the minor has been treated as an Israeli citizen because his father is Israeli. . . . The strange thing here is that we are about to deprive a father who is a respectable man, a lawyer, who all his life took care to keep his Israeli citizenship . . . of his citizenship in order to comply with the extradition request of the United States and to extradite the son,” Libai said.

But the Justice Ministry’s Eshed hinted that the attorney general had found a way to deny Sheinbein citizenship while allowing his father to keep his. “The child is not an Israeli citizen. The father is,” she said.

Sheinbein’s extradition must still be approved by an Israeli court. An appeal, even if it is denied, could hold up extradition for months.

If Sheinbein is not extradited, he would be tried in Israel.