Peres: No joy in pardoning Kuntar

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There will be no joy in signing the release papers for Samir Kuntar, President Shimon Peres told reporters on Tuesday.

"We do not want murderers to go free," he said, "but we have a moral obligation to bring home soldiers whom we sent to defend their country", and as painful as it is for Nina Keren the mother and grandmother of Danny Haran and his daughter Einat who were killed in Nahariya by Samir Kuntar in 1982, he also had to consider the families of Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev who had done so much and had been waiting for two years to have their boys come home.

Nina Keren had asked to speak to him, said Peres, who was scheduled to meet with her on Tuesday afternoon. "It was a very painful thing," he said, "but this is the very least that I owe her as President of the State."

Peres said that he would sign the release papers conditionally. Kuntar's release is contingent on the other side fulfilling all commitments made for the prisoner exchange. If the other side fails to fulfill the commitments Kuntar will not be allowed to leave Israel.

Meanwhile, a last-minute petition filed by family members and relatives of Eliahu Shahar, the policeman killed in a terror attack led by Kuntar, in which they appealed to the High Court of Justice to delay the prisoner swap deal with Hizbullah, was rejected on Tuesday.

In their petition, the family argued that the normal process for a prisoner release includes the right of the victim's family to be heard by those who make the decision on the release. Therefore, the family asked the High Court to grant them that right and allow them the opportunity to speak before the government ahead of a cabinet vote on the matter.

Further, the petitioners claimed that it was not right to release prisoners whose sentences had not yet been completed, nor was it right to accept a prisoner release before the IDF Rabbinate had made a ruling on whether the two kidnapped soldiers, Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev, were alive or dead.

The court rejected the petition without holding a hearing.

One week ago, the High Court of Justice rejected a petition by Yoram Shahar, Eliahu Shahar's brother, against Kuntar's release.

Deputy Supreme Court President Eliezer Rivlin rejected the petition after reading the state's response and without holding a hearing on the matter.

Rivlin ruled that the government's decision to sign the agreement "involves a subject which is at the core of its responsibilities, Israel's foreign and security relations. The considerations that need to be taken into account are of the kind that extend beyond and outside the legal realm."
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