The State prosecutor rejected the insanity plea of Alan Harry Goodman and charged the 38-year-old American-born bachelor in court yesterday with premeditated murder in a shooting rampage on the Temple Mount in the Old City of Jerusalem last April 11 in which two Arabs were killed and more than a dozen wounded.
Goodman, who had recently immigrated to Israel from Baltimore, was seized by police after he opened fire on Moslem worshippers with an Israel army-issue automatic rifle. He based his defense on psychiatric testimony that he was a paranoid schizophrenic. But Jerusalem District Attorney Michael Kirsh said his statements to police after his apprehension did not square with that plea.
According to Kirsh, Goodman told police that his actions were politically motivated and that he had conceived the attack as long ago as 1978 as “revenge” for the killing of Israelis in the terrorist coastal road massacre that year. Only later did Goodman claim to be the “Messiah” and express other delusions, the District Attorney said.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
