Last update - 00:00 25/03/2008
New law removes statute of limitations from murder of PM
By Shahar Ilan, Haaretz Correspondent
The Knesset Plenum on Tuesday approved a law stating that there will be no statute of limitations on crimes relating to the assassination of a prime minister. The new law would include crimes such as assisting an assassination and conspiring to assassinate a prime minister.
The law was proposed by MK Zvi Hendel (National Union - National Religious Party), who said that "the law aims to quiet mutual suspicions that remain on the left and the right that not everyone involved in the traumatic murder [of prime minister Yitzhak Rabin] has peen prosecuted." Hendel was referring to claims from the right that Rabin's killer Yigal Amir had accomplices, and to claims of left wingers that say that the rabbis who approved the assassination must also be prosecuted.
"The assassination of a prime minister in a democratic Jewish state is a crime that no less grave than the crimes of the Nazis, and there is no statute of limitations on their crimes," Hendel added.
The Chairman of the Knesset Constitution, Law and Justice Committee, Menahem Ben-Sasson (Kadima) said that "it is not a regular murder, but rather a crime that aims to undermine the foundations of the democratic regime. Therefore, it follows that the punishment for such a crime will be exceptional. Not only will the statute of limitations on these crimes never expire, the law will also retroactively include crimes already committed."
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