Neo-Nazi from Petah Tikva asks Israel for forgiveness

Roughly seven months ago, police arrested eight members of a neo-Nazi cell operating in central Israel. The affair caused an uproar in the Jewish state, where trauma from the Holocaust is still ripe.

The members, mostly youths from the former Soviet Union, were indicted for a number of racially-motivated aggravated assaults, incitement, and conspiracy to commit a crime.

One of the suspects is charged with seven cases of assault of foreign workers, which were caught on film by the perpetrators themselves.

But in an interview he gave after being released to house arrest this past weekend, he insists the acts were of a spontaneous nature, and not the result of an organized group.