JERUSALEM, 10 June 2005 — The family of Yigal Amir, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin’s killer, has gone online with a website it hopes will win public sympathy for the assassin who is serving a life sentence in prison.
Amitai Amir, 18-year-old brother of the Jewish ultranationalist who shot Rabin dead at a Tel Aviv peace rally in 1995, said he set up the site to correct what he sees as a distorted image of his brother among the Israeli public.
Amitai Amir told Reuters that Yigal Amir carried out the assassination “for one goal: to save Jews...For this I will always respect and admire this great person because it’s a great thing.
“In the media you do not get a proper impression of him,” he added.
The Hebrew website, www.yigalamir.co.il, carries photographs of a smiling Yigal Amir and his brother Hagai, convicted as an accomplice to the assassination, which was an attempt to derail land-for-peace deals Rabin was reaching with the Palestinians.
Amir has shown no remorse for killing Rabin, a general-turned-peacemaker revered as a hero by many Israelis.
Along with details of their lives in prison, the website will soon carry letters written by the jailed Amir brothers and provide a chance to pose questions to them via family members.
Amitai Amir said he hoped the website would show Israelis a different side of his brother.
