Assassin’s Family To Sell Story Relatives Of Rabin’s Killer Hope To Cover Costs With Movie Rights

The family of Yitzhak Rabin’s confessed assassin wants to sell his prison diary and the movie rights to his life story to help meet legal costs estimated at hundreds of thousands of dollars, Israel Radio reported Wednesday.

The radio also reported that the family is trying to sell interviews with Yigal Amir, the 25-year-old nationalist Jew who shot and killed Rabin as he left a peace rally on Nov. 4.

Amir’s lawyer said he is writing a diary in the Beersheba prison where he awaits, in solitary confinement, the Jan. 23 resumption of his trial - “but it is for himself.”

“It’s just the jottings of his own experience,” said Mordechai Offri, who says he was hired by Amir’s family.

Since the assassination, Rabin memorial albums and videos have poured into Israeli stores and are selling briskly. Several books in English are also reportedly in the works, including one by Rabin’s granddaughter, Noa Ben-Artzi, who spoke at his funeral.

Offri refused to discuss the cost of defending Yigal Amir and his brother Hagai, who is charged as an accomplice for allegedly supplying the bullets that killed Rabin.

Legal experts have assessed the cost of Yigal Amir’s defense at $250,000, with tens of thousands dollars more for Hagai.

Telephone calls to Amir’s family went unanswered.

Also Wednesday, the head of the security branch of the Shin Bet, Amos Goren, testified before a commission investigating the assassination. He said he had repeatedly warned of faults in the method of guarding VIPs, Israel Radio said.