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Yigal Amir (Hebrew: יגאל עמיר; born May 31, 1970) is an Israeli right-wing extremist who assassinated incumbent Prime Minister of Israel, Yitzhak Rabin on November 4, 1995, at the conclusion of a rally in Tel Aviv, Israel. At the time of the murder, he was a law student at Bar-Ilan University. Amir is serving a life sentence for murder plus six years for injuring Rabin's bodyguard, Yoram Rubin, under aggravating circumstances. He was later sentenced to an additional eight years for conspiracy to murder. Amir has never expressed regret over the assassination. Numerous radical right-wing Israeli organisations have carried out campaigns for Amir's release. The Shin Bet security service has assessed that Amir remains a threat to national security. The Knesset passed a law preventing the President of Israel from pardoning the assassin of a prime minister. Early life Amir was born in Herzliya to an Israeli Orthodox Yemenite Jewish family, one of eight children. His father Shlomo was a sofer (scribe) who held a post supervising the kosher slaughtering of chickens and taught Shabbat lessons at a local synagogue. His mother Geula was a kindergarten teacher and ran a nursery school in the family home's backyard. Amir attended an Independent Education System school in Herzliya, and a high school yeshiva in Tel Aviv. He did his military service in the Israel Defense Forces as a Hesder student, combining army service in a religious platoon of the Golani Brigade with religious study at Yeshivat Kerem B'Yavneh. Despite being in a religious unit, even his comrades considered him a religious fanatic. Following his military service, Amir was nominated by the religious-Zionist youth movement Bnei Akiva to teach Judaism in Riga, Latvia, as part of the Nativ organization. In 1993, Amir began studying at Bar-Ilan University as part of its kollel program, mixing religious and secular studies. Amir studied law and computer science, as well as Jewish law at the Institute for Advanced Torah Studies. Amir was strongly opposed to the Oslo Accords. He participated in protest rallies against the accords on campus, was active in organizing weekend bus outings to support Israeli settlers, and helped found an illegal settlement outpost. He was especially active in Hebron, where he led marches through the streets. During his years as an activist, Amir became friendly with Avishai Raviv, to whom he allegedly revealed his plan to kill Rabin. After the murder, it was revealed that Raviv, a well known right-wing extremist at the time, was in fact only posing as a right-wing radical. In reality, he was working for Shin Bet, the Israeli internal security service. While some right-wing militants have accused the Shin Bet of having orchestrated the assassination to discredit them, a court later ruled that there was no evidence Raviv knew Amir was plotting to kill Rabin. In 1994, during his university studies, Amir met—and began a platonic relationship with—Nava Holtzman, a law student from an Orthodox Ashkenazi family. In January 1995, after five months, Holtzman ended the relationship after her parents objected due to Amir's Mizrahi background. She married one of his friends soon afterward. Amir, who attended the wedding, went into a deep depression. Assassination On November 4, 1995, after a demonstration in Tel Aviv's Kings of Israel Square (now Rabin Square) in support of the Oslo Accords, Amir waited for Rabin in a parking lot adjacent to the square, close to Rabin's official limousine. There, he shot Rabin twice with a Beretta 84F .380 ACP-caliber semi-automatic pistol, and injured Yoram Rubin, a security guard, with a third shot. Amir was immediately seized by Rabin's bodyguards. Rabin was rushed to Ichilov Hospital where he died on an operating table 40 minutes later of blood loss and a punctured lung. According to the court, Yigal Amir's brother Hagai and his friend Dror Adani were his accomplices in the assassination plan. Upon hearing that Rabin was dead, Amir told the police that he was "satisfied" and was acting on the "orders of God". At his trial, Amir said he did not care if the outcome was death or paralysis as long as Rabin was "out of the way". He expressed no regret for his actions. Failed attempts The assassination had been preceded by three unsuccessful attempts that same year: at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem, at the Nof Yerushalayim Hotel, and at a ceremony inaugurating a highway in Kfar Shmaryahu. These plans fell through moments before implementation. Trial Amir's trial lasted from January 23 to March 27, 1996. He was initially defended by attorneys Yonatan Ray Goldberg and Mordechai Ofri, and later by Gabi Shachar and Shmuel Flishman. He was prosecuted by Pnina Guy, head of the Tel Aviv District Prosecutor's Office. The three judges who heard the case were presiding judge Edmond Levy and judges Saviona Rotlevy and Oded Mudrik. The judges ordered a mental examination by three district psychiatrists and a clinical psychiatrist, who all agreed that Amir understood the meaning of his actions and was fit to stand trial. Amir admitted to shooting Rabin and attempted to justify his actions on religious grounds, claiming that shooting Rabin was an act of din rodef. He also claimed he had only intended to paralyze Rabin and not kill him. The court rejected his arguments, and he was found guilty of the murder of Rabin and inflicting injury under aggravating circumstances over the wounding of Yoram Rubin. Amir was sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of Rabin plus six additional years in prison for injuring Rubin. In the verdict, the three judges wrote: Every murder is an abominable act, but the act before us is more abominable sevenfold, because not only has the accused not expressed regret or sorrow, but he also seeks to show that he is at peace with himself over the act that he perpetrated. He who so calmly cuts short another's life, only proves the depth of wretchedness to which [his] values have fallen, and thus he does not merit any regard whatsoever, except pity, because he has lost his humanity. Amir's claim that he was acting in accordance with Jewish law was rejected by the judges: "The attempt to grant religious authority to the murder...is completely inappropriate and amounts to cynical exploitation of Jewish law for goals that are alien to Judaism." Rabin's assassination was condemned by Bar-Ilan University. Daniel Sperber, a professor of Talmud at the university, said that the assassination "in no way represents the university or the policy of the university". Amir was later sentenced to an additional five years, and after an appeal on behalf of the state, eight years, for conspiring to commit the assassination with his brother Hagai Amir and Dror Adani. All of the sentences were cumulative. In Israel, a sentence of life imprisonment is usually reduced to a period of 20–30 years by the president, with the possibility of further reduction for good behaviour. Howe.... Discover the Larisa Long popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Larisa Long books.