JERUSALEM (AFP) - Israeli security officials warned on Thursday that Lebanese murderer Samir Kantar, who was freed in a prisoner swap after nearly three decades behind bars, should now fear for his own life. "Every terrorist who committed an act of terror against Israel, especially someone like Kantar, who killed a little child and two other people, is a target," one of the officials told AFP."If there is a chance for Israel to close the file on Kantar, Israel won't hesitate," he added, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Kantar, who turns 46 next week, was just 17 when he was sentenced to five life terms for a 1979 triple murder in one of the most notorious attacks in Israeli history.He was convicted of killing a police officer, a civilian and a four-year-old girl, whose skull he was accused of crushing with his rifle butt, in a raid in the northern Israeli town of Nahariya.
Another security official said Kantar "has become a target for killing. Now that he is out of jail, we have no obligation towards Kantar, a loathsome murderer whose accounts will be settled in the end," the unnamed official told the top-selling Yediot Aharonot newspaper.
Israel's intelligence agenices Mossad and Shin Beth opposed Kantar's release but were over-ruled by political considerations, in order to end the mystery over the fate of two Israeli soldiers captured by Hezbollah two years ago in a raid that sparked the devastating 34-day war in 2006. |