| http://www.jpost.com/Editions/2001/12/28/News/News.40757.html
High Court rules Yatom unfit to be Sharon anti-terror aide By Dan Izenberg JERUSALEM (December 28) - The public still does not know all the details of a 1984 incident in which a former senior agent of the Shin Bet, Israel's security agency, killed two captured and disarmed Palestinian terrorists and afterward lied about his actions to two investigation committees, Meretz leader Yossi Sarid said yesterday. He spoke to reporters after the High Court of Justice accepted his petition and ruled that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon could not appoint the agent, Ehud Yatom, to head the anti-terror desk of the National Security Council. "I think the prime minister should thank the High Court for relieving him of the unfortunate appointment, which could have entangled him and the entire state in a matter which smells like a war crime," said Sarid. He said he had read confidential state documents about the 1984 incident, in which Yatom bludgeoned to death two captured and bound terrorists who had hijacked an Ashkelon-bound No. 300 Egged bus and were trying to drive it into the Gaza Strip. Two other terrorists were killed when security forces, including Yatom, who was serving as head of operations for the Shin Bet, stormed the bus. Originally, the security forces announced that all four terrorists had been killed in the rescue operation. But the now-defunct newspaper Hadashot published photos of two of the Palestinians being taken off the bus alive. "I think the public should know the whole story," said Sarid. "We must find a way to publish all of the material so the public will not think that Yatom has been treated unjustly." "I thought Yatom was very qualified for the job and experienced, but the court decided otherwise," Sharon said at a meeting of the Likud central committee in Kfar Saba. "I make a point of respecting the court decisions and not interfering." Yatom charged that the High Court was "cut off from the nation" and that he represented not only himself but also everyone in the security services. "It is a sad morning for all the security forces, whom I happen to represent," he told reporters after the ruling. "I have been fighting terrorism for many years and now, in such a difficult period, when terrorism is striking us ceaselessly, the High Court decision simply proves it is cut off from the nation. It has dealt a very severe blow to the entire defense establishment." Yatom also announced that he intends to run for the Knesset on the Likud ticket. "The nation will teach the High Court of Justice what democracy is," he said. Danny Yatom, who was a close aide to prime ministers Yitzhak Rabin and Ehud Barak, stuck close to his brother throughout the hearing. He told reporters that, while his brother "had committed an act he should not have committed, it happened 17 years ago and he has been persecuted ever since. He has paid more than enough for his actions." The panel of Justices Eliahu Mazza, Tova Strasberg-Cohen, and Dalia Dorner unanimously ruled that although Yatom was ordered to kill the terrorists by his commander, he should have known that the order was patently illegal. Sometimes, wrote Mazza, the illegality of an order may not be absolutely obvious. This is not the situation in the case of Yatom, who "in obeying an order given to him, planned to kill and killed two beaten and bound terrorists who, from the time they were captured and disarmed, ceased to be a threat. "The standard of the purity of arms, which the IDF learned and taught from its very first days, applies undoubtedly to the Shin Bet as well and was certainly not unknown to Yatom. Killing bound and beaten people constitutes an act which critically harms this fundamental value. Even a low-ranking soldier who takes part in such an act cannot claim that he thought that in doing so he was protecting the security of the State of Israel. This all the more true when talking about someone who served as head of Shin Bet operations at the time of the act." Mazza also rejected Yatom's argument that lying to courts was an accepted part of Shin Bet conduct during those years and, in lying to the two committees which tried to find out who had killed the terrorists, he was not doing anything unusual. Mazza wrote that the "culture of false testimony" that was current in the Shin Bet until the Bus 300 incident was meant to cover up the methods used by interrogators to extract information in order to convict terrorists. The aim of the lie was to make sure that suspected terrorists were not set free, because their confessions were extracted by force. In this case, however, Yatom was lying and getting others to lie to save his own skin. "The moral turpitude attributed to Yatom for his part in the cover-up, like the moral turpitude attributed to him for his part in the killing of the terrorists, is heavy and grave," wrote Mazza. Mazza also argued that there is a direct connection between Yatom's crimes and the post he had been offered as head of the anti-terror desk. This position would involve determining the aims of the war against terrorism, proposals for achieving these aims, determining priorities for the use of resources, and organizing and running teams for handling crises. These tasks involve professional skills, but the also require "the necessary moral authority," wrote Mazza. Appointing Yatom would constitute a "negative message regarding the distinction between what is permissible and what is forbidden in the execution of this difficult war." (Gil Hoffman contributed to this report.) |
