Israeli general cleared

Press, 19 August 1985, Page 10

Israeli general cleared

NZPA-Reuter Tel Aviv An Israeli general charged with using excessive violence against two Palestinian Arabs who were beaten to death after hijacking a bus had been acquitted yesterday by a military disciplinary court, an Army spokesman said. The chief infantry and paratroop officer, Brigadier General Yitzhak Mordechai, had been named by an inquiry commission as one of several military and secret service men who used pistol and rifle-butts to beat the hijackers in April 1984. At the disciplinary hearing, which opened on Friday, General Mordechai testified that he had pistolwhipped the Palestinians to force them to disclose whether they had left a bomb on the bus.

Before the proceedings began a Government-ap-pointed inquiry commission said that it could not determine who had struck the fatal blows.

Ruling on the case yesterday, Reserve Major-General Chaim Nadel said, “(Mordechai) conducted the interrogation of the terrorists to obtain vital and immediate information in order to protect the lives of people near the bus.

“The threat to their lives, mainly from an explosion, was real and definitely plausible. “The blows Mordechai struck were not excessive, taking into account he wanted to save the lives of civilians, soldiers, police and general security services personnel.”