President Chaim Herzog has granted amnesty to two of the 27 members of a Jewish underground terrorist network in the West Bank serving sentences for acts of violence against Arabs, his office announced.
Most were convicted and sentenced earlier this year. Dan Be’eri, 41, a former Roman Catholic from France who converted to Judaism, and Yosef Tzuria, a 26-year-old Jewish settler in the West Bank, were sentenced in 1984 for plotting to blow up Islamic shrines on the Temple Mount in East Jerusalem. Each was given three years and would have been eligible for parole in several months had Herzog not intervened to release them sooner. Herzog freed another underground member earlier this year.
There had been demands from rightwing politicians and West Bank settlers for a blanket amnesty while the trials were still in progress. Herzog made clear at the time that he would consider amnesty on an individual basis only after the judicial process ran its course.
Rightwingers in the Knesset plan to present a bill for amnesty for those remaining in jail. They include settlers convicted of the 1980 car bombings which maimed two West Bank mayors and blinded a police sapper, and others found guilty of killing three Arab university students in the West Bank.
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