The Central District Court in Petah Tikva ruled on Monday that Yigal Amir must spend another six months in solitary confinement.
Amir
has been in solitary confinement ever since he was sentenced to a life
term without parole plus an additional 14 years for assassinating Prime
Minister Yitzhak Rabin in November 1995.
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intelligence reports submitted to the court, Shin Bet officials said
that holding Amir in a regular cell with other prisoners would pose a
considerable national security risk.
Prison
Service officials also maintained that because of the nature of the
crimes for which Amir was convicted, his life could be at risk if he was
held with other prisoners.
Rabin's assassin was 'an object of admiration' to extremist factions, said
Judge Avraham Tal. Amir’s
lawyer, Ariel Atari, complained that Amir had been in solitary
confinement for 15 years, the longest of any prisoner in Israel.
However,
the judge said in Monday's ruling that Amir had also been given
benefits not normally offered to solitary prisoners.
Continuing
the easing of Amir's prison conditions, the court ruled Amir could meet
another prisoner three times a week for Torah study, and asked the
Prison Service to assess the possibility of including other prisoners in
the study sessions.