ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1995, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, December 13, 1995 TAG: 9512130047
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-9 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: TEL AVIV, ISRAEL
SOURCE: Associated Press
In a development that may shed light on security breaches that permitted the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin, government officials disclosed Tuesday that they have a videotape of the killing.
Justice Ministry spokeswoman Etty Eshed told The Associated Press that about a month ago the tape was given to a commission investigating the assassination. She said the government would turn over the tape to police, but did not say when.
Eshed said the tape was made by a man who stood among hundreds of Rabin supporters on the roof of a shopping center overlooking the parking lot where the premier was murdered as he walked to his car following a peace rally.
Eshed would not identify the cameraman or say why the tape's existence was kept secret.
Israel's Channel 2 said the footage clearly showed the assassination. But a high-ranking security official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said it just missed the shooting itself.
The only images of the Nov. 4 assassination made public so far are still photographs taken just after the shooting.
Video footage could provide valuable insight into how Yigal Amir, a 25-year-old Jewish extremist, was able to penetrate the supposedly ``sterile'' area around Rabin for a point-blank shot.
Amir, who has confessed to the assassination, faces a murder trial on Dec. 19.
Witnesses appearing before the inquiry commission have suggested there was confusion about the chain of command in security units assigned to the Tel Aviv peace rally.
In Monday's hearing, one officer was unable to name the commander in charge of security in the parking lot, the Yediot Ahronot daily reported.
Police are still searching for another potential accomplice who, the security source said, appears in the footage and was seen by witnesses talking to Amir and patting him on the shoulder just before the shooting.
On Tuesday, the three-member commission, headed by the chief justice of the Supreme Court, walked through the shooting site and listened to officers, both security and police, describe their attempts to protect Rabin the night he was shot.
In a related development, a Haifa military court extended by 10 days the detention of a soldier suspected of stealing weapons and ammunition from the army and providing them to Amir, the army spokesman said.
LENGTH: Medium: 53 linesby CNB