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Yigal Amir (born May 23, 1970) is the Israeli assassin of the Prime Minister of Israel Yitzhak Rabin.

The assassination took place November 4, 1995 at the conclusion of a rally in Tel Aviv. Amir is currently serving a life sentence for murder plus 14 years for conspiracy to murder Yitzhak Rabin on different occasions and for injuring Rabin's bodyguard.

Yigal Amir was born to an Orthodox Jewish family in the Israeli town of Herzliya; his parents are Yemenite Jews who immigrated to Israel from Yemen. He attended a Haredi elementary school and yeshiva for his formal education.

Amir served in the Israel Defense Forces in the Golani Brigade as a soldier-student of Hesder, a combined program that alternates between army training and yeshiva study.

Amir was a law and computer science student at Bar-Ilan University  and a right-wing radical who had strenuously opposed Rabin's signing of the Oslo Accords. During his studying in Bar-Ilan University he was active in the organization of demonstrations against them.

During his years as an activist, Amir became a close friend of Avishai Raviv. Raviv presented himself as a radical anti-Rabin activist but was in fact a secret agent working for the Shin Bet (Israel's internal security service).

Raviv's role as Amir's close friend and any part he may have had in Amir's activities leading up to the assassination has not been made public and hence clarified. Events such as these have engendered controversial assassination conspiracy theories.

The assassination and aftermath

On November 4, 1995, after a demonstration held in support of the Oslo Accords, held in Tel Aviv's "Kings of Israel Square", Amir awaited Rabin in the parking lot adjacent the square, close to Rabin's official limousine, where he shot Rabin twice with a Beretta 84F semi-automatic pistol in .380 ACP caliber (serial number D98231Y). During the act, Amir also injured Yoram Rubin, a security guard, with another shot.

Yigal Amir's brother, Hagai Amir, and his friend Dror Adani, were his accomplices in the assassination plan. Amir had attempted to assassinate Rabin twice throughout 1995, but those plans fell through moments before implementation.

Amir was caught at the scene. Upon hearing Yitzhak Rabin died due to his assassination, Amir told the police he was "satisfied". Amir was sentenced to life imprisonment plus 6 additional years in prison for injuring Rubin. In the verdict, the judges wrote:

Every murder is an abominable act, but the act before us is more abominable seven-fold, because not only has the accused not expressed regret or sorrow, but he also seeks to show that he is at peace with himself over the act that he perpetrated.

He who so calmly cuts short another's life, only proves the depth of wretchedness to which [his] values have fallen, and thus he does not merit any regard whatsoever, except pity, because he has lost his humanity.

In a later trial, Amir was sentenced to an additional 5 years (and after an appeal on behalf of the State, 8 years) for conspiring to commit the assassination with his brother Hagai Amir and Dror Adani. All of the sentences were cumulative.

Amir was held in isolation in the Be'er Sheva Prison, and was moved to the Ayalon Prison in 2003. His appeals on both sentences were rejected. Subsequently, a law was passed by the Knesset barring the pardon by the President of Israel for any assassin of a prime minister. Amir has never expressed regret for his actions.

Marriage to Larisa Trembovler

While in prison, Amir was engaged to Larisa Trembovler. Amir had met her years ago, when he was a teacher of Judaism sent by Israel to educate Russian Jews. Trembovler first started to visit Amir in jail with her husband.

Amir and Trembovler began exchanging letters and speaking on the phone, after she expressed ideological support for him. She abandoned her husband and academic career because of her public personal ties with Amir.

After her divorce, Amir requested to marry Larisa Trembovler and to receive the privilege to conjugally unite with his intended wife. In January 2004, the Israel Prison Service announced that it would prohibit Amir from marrying in jail and in April 2004, the Tel Aviv District Court reviewed the decision.

However, in August 2004 Amir and Trembovler married outside Israeli official channels according to Jewish law, by giving his father a "power of attorney" to transfer a wedding ring (or something of similar value) to his bride.

In July 2005 their marriage was validated by a Rabbinical court, but not by the Israeli Ministry of the Interior. The prison administration issued a statement saying that its policy concerning the "conjugal visits" will not be changed.

In February 2006 Attorney General Menachem Mazuz had ordered the Interior Ministry to register Amir and Larissa Trimbobler as a married couple in response to a petition filed by Trembovler.

In late August 2005 Amir applied to the prison authorities to allow him and his new wife to conceive a child through in vitro fertilisation.

In March 2006 the Israeli Prison Service allowed Amir by his petition to have a child with Trembovler through artificial insemination. The Service was to study how this process would be conducted without Amir leaving the prison.

A week later it reported that Amir was caught when he tried to give his wife a previously prepared plastic bag with semen to his wife. The visit was ended. After the incident a disciplinary tribunal denied him visits for 30 days and phone calls for 14 days. He was fined for 100 NIS (then US $21).

When the treatments were withheld due to a petition rendered by several members of Knesset, Yigal Amir refused to receive food. After being warned that his "hunger strike" was a violation of prison regulations, he was stripped of his privileges, including phone and visitation rights.

Wikipedia.org