02/16/96 - 05:16 PM ET - Click reload often for latest version
Video of Rabin's assassination broadcast
JERUSALEM - A video of Yitzhak Rabin's assassination broadcast on Israeli TV Tuesday night shows a gunman loitering unchallenged near the prime minister's car, easily approaching him from behind and shooting him in the back at point-blank range.
The dark and grainy video, taken by an amateur photographer, shows the gunman stalking Rabin until his outstretched left arm nearly touches the prime minister. Two shots from the gun suddenly flash and Rabin drops to the pavement, covered by his bodyguards.
The Yediot Ahronot newspaper published a series of still images from the eight-minute video Tuesday. It printed the dramatic moment of assassination across half its front page.
Israel TV's Channel Two aired the tape as the opener of its prime time newscast. Previously, the only image the public had seen of the assassination were still photographs showing only Rabin's heels as he lay mortally wounded near his car.
The video was made by Tel Aviv resident Ronni Kempler, 37, an accountant for the State Comptroller's Office. He filmed the murder from a rooftop overlooking the parking lot where Rabin was shot after a Nov. 4 peace rally.
Asked why he filmed the parking lot, Kempler told Yediot Ahronot: "The whole time I had the feeling that something bad would happen. There was anxiety in the air. Maybe because in the (army) reserves I deal in security, I am more sensitive to that."
In much of the tape, Kempler focuses on confessed gunman Yigal Amir, who sat some of the time on the stone edge of a round flower bed in the parking lot. Amir has said he was able to approach the prime minister by posing as a driver.
"At first, he looked suspicious to me as he sat by the plant," Kempler said.
"He stood out, and with all the talk about political assassinations, attacks - he looked like a potential killer. Then I told myself that he was probably an undercover policeman, because otherwise the police would have dealt with him."
At one point the gunman got up from the flower bed, approached Rabin from behind and fired two shots. After the shots rang out, people around the prime minister ducked.
At that moment, the amateur cameraman who taped the assassination also hit the ground, and the video shows the guard rail on the roof.
Yediot and Channel Two bought the tape from Kempler for $350,000, said Nachman Shai, the director of Channel Two. Most of that outlay has been recouped by reselling the footage to other news organizations, Shai said.
By The Associated Press
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