http://www3.haaretz.co.il/eng/scripts/article.asp?id=4440&mador=1
Ha'aretz, Sunday, October 5, 1997
President pardons Jewish killers
Commutes sentences of four other security prisoners
By Dalia Shehori and Joseph Algazi, Ha'aretz
Correspondents
On the eve of the new year, President Ezer Weizman
pardoned two Jewish security prisoners and
commuted the sentences of four others, following
the recommendation of Minister of Justice Tzachi
Hanegbi.
Ze'ev Wolf and Gershon Hershkowitz were released
from prison last Wednesday after serving only four
years of a 10-year sentence. The two were
convicted in July 1993 of lobbing a grenade into a
butcher's market in the Old City of Jerusalem,
killing an Arab trader. They were members of
Kahane Chai, the radical group formed in memory of
assassinated Kach leader Rabbi Meir Kahane.
In addition, Yoram Skolnik, a West Bank settler,
had his life sentence shortened to 15 years. In
March 1993, Skolnik shot dead Musa Abu Sabha while
he was tied up and blindfolded. Abu Sabha had been
on the run for three years and had stabbed
Skolnik's friend before being caught.
Nir Efroni, who was sentenced to 22 years for
killing an Arab gas station attendant in December
1984, will serve only 15 years as well. His
partner in the crime, Eli Vanunu, had a 25-year
sentence commuted to 20 years. Nachshon Wolf will
serve only 13 years of a 15-year sentence for his
involvement in shooting at a car in which Aziza
Salem, an Arab woman, was killed in August 1990.
Aryeh Shumer, director general of the President's
Residence, said Weizman's decision to pardon and
shorten the sentences was unrelated to the recent
release of Hamas founder Sheikh Ahmed Yassin.
Shumer pointed out that last year, when the
president announced pardons for a number of
Palestinian women prisoners, he was asked to
pardon or shorten the sentences of Jewish security
prisoners. At the time, Weizman said he would
consider such a move.
Meanwhile, a committee monitoring the conditions
of Israeli-Arab prisoners appealed to Weizman to
grant clemency to Arab prisoners serving sentences
on security-related charges. The committee said
Weizman's decision to pardon and commute sentences
of Jewish convicts while ignoring Arab convicts
was a form of discrimination
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