The gamecock. (Columbia, S.C.) 1908-2006, September 03, 1999, Page 4, Image 4
Israeli court convicts American of murder
by Jack Katzenell
Associated Press
Tel Aviv, Israel — Samuel Sheinbein
was silent on the subject for two years.
On Thursday, he spoke only a single word.
“Yes,” the stone-faced Maryland teen
ager said when an Israeli judge asked him
whether he strangled an acquaintance
with a rope in a middle-class suburb of
Washington, D.C., then cut up the body
with an electric saw and burned the parts.
Under a plea bargain that infuriated
U.S. prosecutors, Sheinbein, 19, is to be
sentenced to 24 years in an Israeli prison
for the 1997 killing. He will probably be
paroled after 14 years, counting the two
years he has already spent in Israeli cus
tody. He could have received a much
tougher sentence if he were convicted as
an adult in the United States.
Sheinbein fled to Israel shortly after
the killing of Alfredo Tello Jr. in Sep
tember 1997 and successfully fought ex
tradition.
The case sharply strained relations
between Israel and the United States.
On Thursday, standing handcuffed be
tween two policemen, Sheinbein stared
straight ahead as the verdict was read, ig
noring the camera crews that packed the
Tel Aviv District Court just as he had ig
nored questions shouted at him as he came
in.
Although he has picked up some
basic Hebrew, Sheinbein listened to an
interpreter translate the proceedings in
to English. When asked by Judge Uri
Goren whether he had strangled Tello and
cut up and burned his body, Sheinbein an
swered “ken,” the Hebrew word for “yes.”
The sentence will not be handed down
until Oct. 11, after a social worker has
submitted a report on Sheinbein. The re
port is required because Sheinbein was
17—a minor—at the time of the killing.
The judge still has considerable dis
cretion and could impose a longer or short
er sentence than proposed in the plea bar
gain. However, a life term is unlikely. No
one who committed a crime as a minor
has ever been jailed for life in Israel.
After Tello’s slaying, Sheinbein es
caped to Israel, claiming Israeli citizen
ship on the grounds that his father was
bom in Israel. His friend Aaron Needle,
also charged in the crime, committed sui
cide in a Maryland jail.
The Israeli prosecution rejected Shein
bein’s citizenship claim and moved to
comply with a request from the United
States for Sheinbein’s extradition. But
Sheinbein’s lawyer, David Libai, took the
issue to Israel’s Supreme Court, which
ruled that under existing Israeli law Shein
bein could not be extradited.
The judges criticized the law, and it
has since been amended, but it was too
late to affect the Sheinbein case.
The Hispanic community in Mary
land was outraged by the killing and by
Israel’s refusal to extradite Sheinbein.
Some members of Congress threatened
to cut aid to Israel unless he was sent back.
In court Thursday, Libai said he would
not claim that Sheinbein acted in self-de
fense, as the defendant’s father had
done in his testimony to a grand jury in
Maryland. Sol Sheinbein had said Tello
tried to rob Needle and pulled a gun on
him.
Prosecutor Hadassah Maor apologized
to the three judges because the plea bar
gain was disclosed to the media by Dou
glas Gansler, state’s attorney in Mont
gomery Country, Md., before it had been
submitted to the Israeli court. She said
the Israeli prosecution had felt bound to
inform its colleagues in Maryland of the
deal, but asked them not to make it
public before the court received it.
Gansler, who would have had juris
diction over the case, said Thursday it was
“a miscarriage of justice” that Sheinbein
was tried in Israel. He said the Tello fam
ily, with whom he spoke last week, was
“resigned, frustrated.”
Earlier, Gansler said it was outrageous
that Sheinbein would be free at the age
of 33 after committing a “thrill kill.”
Court allows Million Youth
March, urges police restraint
by Larry Neumeister
Associated Press
New York — A federal appeals court has upheld
a decision allowing the Million Youth March to
go forward in Harlem this weekend,’ even going so
far as to warn the city not to police the rally with
“undue rigidity.”
Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, who insists the
event is a thinly disguised hate march, was furious
with the ruling, saying the judges “have the luxury
of keeping their heads in the sand.”
“Thank goodness they don’t have to govern a
city because things would be really dangerous,” he
said Wednesday after the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court
of Appeals rejected the city’s challenge of a lower
court order.
Rally organizers said the event, which they es
timate will draw 20,000, would focus on opportu
nities for black and Latino youths to make a better
world by educating themselves and challenging their
government to act fairly and responsibly to every
one.
Michael Hess, a lawyer for the city, said re
cent statements by rally organizers made it clear the
group intends to seek violence, even bringing in
gangs to help it succeed.
“This is a unique event, the only I’ve seen preach
ing hate, violence and death,” he said.
But the court sided with organizers, finding they
had a first Amendment right to proceed.
The three-judge panel warned the police de
partment not to patrol the event with “undue rigid
it,” and said forceful action should be taken only if
the crowd does not disperse after the deadline of 4
p.m. Saturday.
Last year, 28 people were injured, including 16
police officers, when chairs and bricks were hurled
as an army of officers moved in to shut down the
rally one minute after the 4 p.m. deadline.
S.C. takes to Internet in hopes
of returning lost Jewish assets
Associated Press
COLLMJIA—The S.C. Insurance
Department hopes to link fami
lies of Holocaust-era Jews to lost
assets through the Internet.
The agency put a link on its
Internet page to the names of
29,000 Holocaust-era Jews ear
lier this week and is mailing the
list to synagogues and to 60
known Holocaust survivors in the
state.
The list includes unclaimed
Swiss bank accounts, plus names
from the Austrian State Archives
in Vienna. People who recognize
the name of a relative might then
be in line to inherit unclaimed
Holocaust-era assets.
Richard Bach, a Bennettsville
resident whose parents were de
ported to a concentration camp
in Poland and never seen again,
recently inspected the list.
“I didn’t see any names on
there that concerned me,” Bach,
79, told The State.
“I was kind of doubtful that I
would recognize any names,”
Bach said. “Unfortunately, I did
n’t know a whole lot about my
father’s finances back then, so it’s
tough.”
The restitution process could
take years. No one knows what
the potential payout for each per
son could be. Swiss banks have
created a $1.25 billion compen
sation fund to cover claims. Some
estimates claim that there might
be 200,000 people with claims
in the United States alone.
Stale, federal and international
governments and groups have
sought help in recovering assets
an insurance benefits owed Holo
caust victims and their heirs.
For decades, European in
surers refused to honor policies
of Jews and others who were
killed by Nazis killed during WmM
V<hr n because death certificates
were rarely issued for concen
tration camp victims and policies
were lost in the havoc of war.
’Hie Insurance Department
expects more lists will be released,
spokesman Clayton Ingram said
“We’re still just scratching the
surface. There’s probably a lot
more to come,” he said.
World Briefs
■ Prision riot sparks
criticism of privately
owned prisons
Sania Fe, N.M. (AP)—A fiery uprising
by 290 inmates that led to the killing of
a corrections guard at a private prison has
sparked renewed criticism of the facili
ties in New Mexico.
Ralph Garcia, 42, was the first prison
guard killed in a dozen years in New Mex
ico. But in the past nine months, four in
mates have been killed in prisons oper
ated by Wackenhut Corrections Corp.
Garcia was stabbed numerous times
with a homemade knife in an attack by
as many as nine inmates at the Guadalupe
County Correctional Facility, one of two
prisons in New Mexico operated by Flori
da-based Wackenhut.
The Tuesday riot near Santa Rosa was
sparked by the prison’s attempt to lock
down the facility after an inmate was
stabbed in a gymnasium.
“I don’t think in any way you can
point the finger at Wackenhut for some
thing that was done by inmates,” said Re
publican Gov. Gary Johnson.
Johnson and Corrections Secretary
Rob Perry said they haven’t decided
whether to follow through on Perry’s
threat to remove inmates from private
prisons if more deaths or disturbances oc
curred.
■ China vows not to
use nuclear weapons
in conflict with Taiwan
Beuing (AP) — While declaring its re
solve to retake rival Taiwan by force if
necessary, China removed one threat
Thursday by promising not to use nuclear
weapons in the event of a conflict.
The pledge, issued by the Foreign
Ministry, was the most explicit, public
renunciation of the nuclear option Chi
na has ever given Taiwan and suggested
a slight easing of their latest tensions.
Taiwanese President Lee Teng-hui
provoked the latest round of Chinese
anger, saying in July that the two sides
should deal with each other as separate
states. Such a suggestion of parity seemed
to Beijing as another move toward out
right independence.
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