Woman Who Failed to Report Rabin Plot Begins Jail Term
Surrounded by supporters and her weeping parents, a woman convicted of failing to prevent the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin began a nine-month jail sentence Wednesday.
Margalit Har-Shefi, 25, a friend of Rabin’s assassin, Yigal Amir, repeated her claim of innocence as she entered a prison for women in central Israel.
“I did not know” about the planned assassination, she said. “Even prison can’t change the truth.”
Har-Shefi said she thought Amir, an ultranationalist, was only boasting and would not actually kill Rabin. But the Supreme Court ruled in a recent appeal that she knew about Amir’s two previous, abortive attempts to assassinate the prime minister--and knew he was going to try again.
Amir, who opposed Rabin’s peace policies with the Palestinians, shot him in November 1995 after a peace rally in Tel Aviv.
Har-Shefi has said she had been made a scapegoat for the security service’s failure to protect Rabin.
Amir is serving a life sentence in solitary confinement. His brother Hagai is serving a 12-year sentence for complicity.
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