SIGHTINGS



The Fatal Sting - The Other
Rabin Murder Book
A Review Of Natan Gefen's 'The Fatal Sting'
By Barry Chamish <chamish@netvision.net.il>
3-27-00
 
 
My expose of the true Rabin assassination, Who Murdered Yitzhak Rabin, received a great deal of attention because it was the first and because it was published in four languages. The release of a second book on the conspiracy, The Fatal Sting by Natan Gefen was greeted with less fanfare, partly because that's what happens when you're number two, and in greater part, because so far, the book is only available in Hebrew.
 
Those who read Hebrew often ask if there is a rivalry between me and Gefen. The answer is no; we are on the same team. And I'm not being overly magnanimous when I conclude that his book is as valuable as mine for those seeking the truth of what really happened to Rabin. In fact, Gefen adds several documents missing from my work that round out the study of the assassination. Allow me to point out his most striking revelations.
 
Amir Did Not Confess At The Beginning
 
A month after the murder, on December 3, 1995, a court hearing was held to consider Israel Police's request for an extension of its investigation of the murder. Before the hearing began, Amir shouted at the reporters present, demanding to know why they were not investigating the murder of the security officer Yoav Kuriel. Most of Israel saw his outburst on television and heard the following interchange between him and Judge Dan Arbel , who ordered Amir to desist from speaking to the media.
 
From Maariv 4/11/95: One Of The Reporters - Would you do it again? Amir - Yes. After you understand why, you'll see the system is rotten. Everything is set up. What you're seeing is a facade. I didn't think they'd start killing people. Since Oslo B... Judge Arbel - Don't talk about Oslo B. You're not the Foreign Minister. Amir - They're killing people. Don't you understand that? It's all a lie. Judge Arbel - What's a lie? Amir - That I killed Rabin. I never even tried to kill him.
 
I included that remarkable exchange in my book but had no idea that Amir's denial appeared in the court records. Gefen managed to track down the protocols of this hearing and he reprints them in full in The Fatal Sting. After the reporters are removed from the court and the session continues in camera, Amir tells Judge Arbel, "About the request for an extension, what you've seen now has all been a facade. I request to be allowed to explain the background to my actions. They're killing people. If you listen to the truth, the whole country will be up in arms." Amazing it is that one month after the murder Amir was still trying to tell an Israeli court the truth and the judge turned down his request to speak. The justice system was rigged against Amir from the beginning and Gefen proves it. After this incident, Amir was taken away for over a month and a half and when he returned from Shabak prison to face the investigators of the Shamgar Commission and the judges at his own trial, he had changed. Now he was an ever-smiling buffoon who confessed every time a witness testified in his favor. If only Judge Arbel had let him speak the truth.
 
The Bullets
 
On page nine of his book, Gefen makes an astute observation about Hagai Amir and Dror Edni. Both were tried and given long prison sentences for supplying the ammunition to the murderer. Most of the case against them was based on the following events. On the night of the murder, the police searched the Amir home in Herzlia and came up nearly empty-handed. Two days later, the Shabak (General Security Services, Israel's FBI), researched the home and came away with two pistols and a huge armory of bullets. Gefen observes that if Hagai Amir and Dror Edni were really involved in the assassination, they would never have left such an armory in the Amir house. Now we jump to page 30 and Gefen reports on the bullet that supposedly shot Rabin's personal bodyguard, and my prime candidate as his murderer, Yoram Rubin. The actual bullet was never found and Rubin was not actually shot. But traces of the bullet which passed through his jacket were found by Israel Crime Lab technician, Chief Lieutenant Baruch Gladstein and he discovered brass, a metal that was not found in the bullets which wounded Rabin. Gefen makes three points which I missed in my book. First, the prosecution explained away the different bullet by claiming that Amir loaded two types of bullets into his clip. Gefen puts the argument to rest by referring to the police ballistics report. No bullet with the chemical composition of that which pierced Rubin's suit was found in Amir's clip or in the armory allegedly kept by his brother Hagai and his "accomplice" Edni. Next, Gefen notes that hollowpoint bullets are rarely used in Israeli murders and it would have been mad for a political assassin to use them since they are much less effective at penetrating a bulletproof vest, which Rabin should have been but wasn't wearing. How would Amir have known Rabin wouldn't be wearing one? However, hollowpoints shatter upon impact and cannot be traced back to a specific weapon.
 
Finally, a major revelation, nowhere in the court or police records are Amir's gun, clip or extant bullets tested for fingerprints. There is no fingerprint evidence that Amir ever held the murder weapon or loaded its clip. Gefen insists this could not have been an oversight and implies that the fingerprint evidence was deliberately withheld.
 
Tampering With The Film
 
Many people have found ways to prove that the "amateur" film of the murder, wrongly attributed to a Shabak flunkie named Ronnie Kempler, was obviously tampered with. The shooter in the still-frame from the film has a different haircut and face than Amir, is wearing a long-sleeved shirt, when Amir wore a short-sleeved shirt and is shooting with his left hand, while Amir shot from the right. It can't be Amir and I have concluded that someone else was superimposed into the frame to bring Amir closer to the point blank range the police found Rabin was shot at. Central to the case against Amir is the frame which supposedly captures the flash of the gun as he shoots. Bernard Shechter, head of the Police Forensics Laboratory at the time of the assassination, told me that he had never seen a flash appear like that in any other shooting he had examined and suspected that it was drawn in. Arther Vered, a computer expert pulled the flash frame from the Kempler film and placed it atop the flash still which was first published by Yediot Ahronot. They are not the same. Still, there are lingering suspicions that the gunflash was real.
 
Not any more. Gefen consulted a physicist who explained most rationally, that the light generated by the flash of an ignited bullet cartridge is as brilliant as lightning. If the flash was real, it would have lit up Rabin's back, which it clearly does not. The Fatal Sting proves the photo of Amir shooting Rabin has been altered drastically.
 
Understanding Dr. Barabash
 
One of the biggest headaches I have when lecturing is explaining away the TV interview given by Ichilov Hospital director, Dr. Gabi Barabash on the evening of the assassination. While, the official version of Rabin's murder has him shot twice in the back, both Gefen and I agree that all the evidence proves that Rabin was shot three times, the final fatal shot coming from the front and ultimately shattering his spine, a wound the government claims never occurred.
 
I present two televised interviews from Ichilov to my audiences. First, I show Health Minister Ephraim Sneh announcing that Rabin was shot three times; in the chest, stomach and spinal cord. Then comes Barabash who confirms the chest to spine wound but claims Rabin was only shot twice. The Fatal Sting more than suggests he was lying. Two hours later, Dr. Barabash was interviewed on Channel Two and he is much less certain about the number of shots. Gefen provides the text of this startling interview and keeps the original tape in his archive. Channel Two Reporter - How many bullets are we talking about? Dr. Barabash - Pardon me? Channel Two Reporter - How many bullets are we talking about? Dr. Barabash - I think two, no three, I think two. One of them injured the area around the heart and wounded the spinal cord, cutting it off. Barabash can't get the story straight. He mixes up the coverup with the truth.
 
When Was Rabin Shot?
 
The Fatal Sting includes a shocking document I had never seen before and frankly, I just can't digest it. I had concluded based on court testimony and hospital records that Rabin was shot at 9:40, placed in his limousine a few minutes later and arrived at the hospital at 9:52. Since the ride should have taken only a minute, I concluded that Rabin's driver, Menachem Damti, got unexplainably lost for eight minutes. Two months ago, one of Rabin's surgeons, Dr. Kluger told Haaretz that, in fact, Rabin was twelve minutes late. How could I have been off by four minutes?
 
(I digress. A close associate of his informed me last week that Dr. Kluger has been afflicted by a mysterious malady and looks, "like a living corpse." He is the second doctor to be so mysteriously stricken recently. Last September, the head of Rabin's surgical team, Dr. Mordechai Gutman suffered neurological pain that left him unable to function for six weeks. The cause of the pain was never identified but my informant told me, "He got the hint.")
 
To confuse the issue more, Gefen presents the hospital conclusion based on blood coagulation that Rabin was shot 4-5 minutes before he arrived at Ichilov. This would mean, according to my published calculations, that Rabin was shot some three minutes after he entered his car. If Kluger is right, then Rabin was shot, some seven minutes into his final journey. This is just too much of a discrepancy and it must be explained.
 
Gefen does so in such a drastic fashion that, until I figure out what it means, I must remain speechless. Reprinted in The Fatal Sting are Amir's arrest records. According to them, he was arrested by the police at 9:30 PM, or a full ten minutes before, officially, Rabin was shot by him. I tried and tried to work it out, until finally I phoned Nathan Gefen and asked him, "Is this arrest report mistaken? Didn't people check their watches to see when Rabin was shot? Why is it accepted that Rabin was shot at 9:40 if Amir was already in custody by then?" He replied, "This is the first police report and it's the most authentic. After that, the arrest time was readjusted five minutes at a time to suit the cases of Shamgar and Amir's prosecutors." In The Fatal Sting, Gefen quotes a police expert who explains that the time of arrest in such a form is the most vital information of all and it is rarely, if ever, so wrong. Gefen concludes, "If Amir had chosen to pursue his innocence, he has the best alibi of all. He was already under arrest when Rabin was shot."
 
There is much more in this book, but the arrest records shook me up the most. Gefen dares where I merely hinted: he names Shimon Peres as the organizer of the murder and he has strong arguments to back his accusation up. Today, I have even stronger ones than Gefen. However, the real strength of The Final Sting lies in the documentation, which when combined with the ample documents of my book, proves beyond any doubt that Yigal Amir could not possibly have murdered Rabin. Now there are two books that reach the same conclusion. A third is on the way. It is called Lies: The Israeli Secret Service And The Rabin Assassination by David Morrison. It will be published by Gefen Books of Jerusalem (no relation to Nathan Gefen). Write isragefen@netmedia.net.il for information. Last October, Rabin's son Yuval went on television and demanded a reinvestigation of his father's murder because, "If not, there are going to be a lot more books likes Chamish's soon." His prediction is, thankfully, coming true.
 
* * *
 
The Fatal Sting is sold through the Steimatzky chain in Israel or can be ordered by phone from Ram Marketing. Call (972) (0)3 6775630 or 03 5745367. Natan Gefen can be reached at gfn@inter.net.il
 
My book Who Murdered Yitzhak Rabin is distributed in English in America by Brookline Books, call 1 800 666 BOOK and is available again over Amazon.
 
Please visit www.webseers.com/rabin


 
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