Jewish Settler Commits Suicide in Connection with Jewish Terrorism

Suicide by killer settler in Israel jail

December 23, 2006

JERUSALEM: A Jewish settler who was jailed for life after killing four Palestinians in a shooting spree in the occupied West Bank committed suicide yesterday.

The murders in August 2005 were called an "act of Jewish terrorism" by then prime minister Ariel Sharon.

Israeli prison officials said Asher Weisgan, 41, used his phylacteries, leather straps that religious Jewish men don each day in prayer, to hang himself in his cell at the central Ayalon Prison.

"He left his prayer book open on the Kaddish page," Prisons Service spokeswoman Orit Steltzer said, referring to a traditional dirge for the dead.

Weisgan told investigators he killed the four West Bank labourers to provoke violent Palestinian retaliation. He hoped this would tie down Israeli troops and halt their removal of settlers from the Gaza Strip.

Weisgan was found guilty of murder, attempted murder and aggravated assault in September. He was sentenced to four consecutive life terms and ordered to pay compensation to the families of those killed and injured.

Security forces examining the scene of the shooting attack in Shiloh.