Police would study killings

Press, 9 July 1986, Page 10

Police would study killings

NZPA-AP Tel Aviv Israel’s Prime Minister, Mr Shimon Peres, had said that if the Supreme Court failed to order a commission of inquiry into the deaths of two Palestinian prisoners the police would Investigate the incident, Israeli radio reported yesterday. Mr Peres, leader of the Left-leaning Labour Party, had told the in camera session of the Parliamentary Foreign Affairs and Defence Committee that the investigation could not be stopped even if the Government wished to do so, the radio said. The Foreign Minister, Mr Yitzhak Shamir,

leader of the Right-wing Likud bloc, had rejected allegations of a cover-up in the killings and called the deaths by beating an accident. Mr Shamir’s statement appeared to conflict with statements by the chief of the Shin Bet security service, who suggested that the action was authorised and based on policy.

Whether to hold an investigation has been troubling the Government for weeks and has upset the shaky Labour-Likud coalition Cabinet. Messrs Shamir and Peres will swap jobs later this year in a power-sharing agreement.

Mr Shamir called for the scandal to be “dropped from the public agenda ... any public attention to the matter causes damage, endangers one of the most important security instruments we have. One must stop poking into this wotmd. “Everything that should be done, from the point of view of justice ... must be done, but not in public,” Mr Shamir said. “We must find ways to put an end to this witches’ coven ...

and will allow this organisation (Shin Bet) to act.”

In a letter to the President, Mr Chaim Herzog, requesting immunity from

prosecution in the form of a pardon, Shin Bet’s chief, Avraham Shalom, referred to allegations that he ordered the killing of the two prisoners and engineered a cover-up. He cited higher authority, a reference to Mr Shamir, who a$ Prime Minister at the time had sole responsibility for Shin Bet. The Supreme Court is considering five appeals to launch an inquiry into the- rhattef, including Mr Shamir’s role. It was also asked to rule on the legality of the Government’s obtaining Presidential pardons for Mr Shalom and'three other top Shin Bet officials.