JERUSALEM: Israeli police have pressed charges against a man suspected of seeking religious permission to assassinate the country’s attorney general.
The 36-year-old suspect was arrested in Jerusalem on Wednesday after delivering a letter to influential rabbi Yitzhak Yosef.
Yosef immediately alerted the police, who traced the man to his home and took him into custody.
A court has extended his detention until at least Sunday.
Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara has clashed with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing government since it took office in late 2022.
She is a frequent target of criticism from far-right and ultra-Orthodox groups, particularly for her support of conscripting military-age men from the ultra-Orthodox community.
According to police, the suspect sought rabbinical authorisation to kill the attorney general in order to “preserve human lives”.
He is believed to have requested a “din rodef” — a traditional Jewish legal concept permitting the extra-judicial killing of someone deemed an imminent danger to others.
The concept has no place in Israeli law but has been invoked by extremists in the past.
Former prime minister Yitzhak Rabin was the object of a “din rodef” by some religious figures before his 1995 assassination over the Oslo peace accords. – AFP