Former GSS head Ami Ayalon testified today at the trial of GSS agent provocateur Avishai Raviv - by request of the defense. The testimony was heard behind closed doors. Yigal Amir, convicted assassin of the late Prime Minister Yitzchak Rabin, will testify tomorrow that Raviv knew nothing of his plans to kill Rabin. HaTzofeh newspaper reported last year that Avishai Raviv told the police that he heard Yigal Amir speak clearly on five occasions of his plans to murder Rabin.
Raviv had asked that Attorney-General Elyakim Rubenstein also be required to testify, but the Jerusalem Magistrates Court turned him down. Raviv is being charged with "not preventing" Rabin's murder - and not with encouraging it, even though several witnesses testified that they heard him try to goad Amir into killing Rabin. Many nationalist camp leaders attribute a major role to Avishai Raviv in the anti-right-wing atmosphere that pervaded much of the country in the years following and immediately preceding the assassination.
Arutz-7 journalist Adir Zik, who has been closely following the Raviv case since Rabin's assassination, said today that the Amir brothers' position in this case "arouses very strong questions. Haggai Amir [who was accused of being an accomplice in the assassination and is still in prison] was called by the prosecution against Raviv, but refused to testify - and now Yigal Amir will testify that Raviv was not involved. I have letters from Yigal Amir in which he writes that they should leave Raviv alone, that he would get his punishment from Heaven, but that he [Raviv] was not involved. It is very strange... Amir's position altogether is quite strange, in that he continues to claim that he murdered Yitzchak Rabin; but I and my colleagues who demand a re-investigation into the affair have objective evidence [to the contrary]. The Halakhic [Jewish legal] rule is that a person may not incriminate himself..."
Raviv had asked that Attorney-General Elyakim Rubenstein also be required to testify, but the Jerusalem Magistrates Court turned him down. Raviv is being charged with "not preventing" Rabin's murder - and not with encouraging it, even though several witnesses testified that they heard him try to goad Amir into killing Rabin. Many nationalist camp leaders attribute a major role to Avishai Raviv in the anti-right-wing atmosphere that pervaded much of the country in the years following and immediately preceding the assassination.
Arutz-7 journalist Adir Zik, who has been closely following the Raviv case since Rabin's assassination, said today that the Amir brothers' position in this case "arouses very strong questions. Haggai Amir [who was accused of being an accomplice in the assassination and is still in prison] was called by the prosecution against Raviv, but refused to testify - and now Yigal Amir will testify that Raviv was not involved. I have letters from Yigal Amir in which he writes that they should leave Raviv alone, that he would get his punishment from Heaven, but that he [Raviv] was not involved. It is very strange... Amir's position altogether is quite strange, in that he continues to claim that he murdered Yitzchak Rabin; but I and my colleagues who demand a re-investigation into the affair have objective evidence [to the contrary]. The Halakhic [Jewish legal] rule is that a person may not incriminate himself..."