The Driver

"With me it wouldn't have happened"
Yechezkel Sharabi

Menachem Damti belonged to the Prime Minister�s pool of drivers. All drivers are employees of the Ministry of Defence and receive GSS clearing and basic training. They are required to know every route through which they are about to drive the PM, including escape routes, back streets, etc. They are all seasoned drivers with excellent knowledge of Israel and its cities roads.

Although Damti did drive Rabin on occasion, he was by no means the �personal driver� of Rabin. That role belonged to Yechezkel Sharabi. Rabin and Sharabi went back a long way. They first met when Rabin served as IDF�s Chief of Staff and Sharabi became his driver. A friendship had developed between the two which became a truly close relationship through the years. In 1970 Rabin became the ambassador to Washington. When, on his return, he was elected for his first tenure as Prime Minister he took Sharabi with him as his personal driver. All throughout the years Rabin kept faith with his driver who followed him at every job his �boss� fulfilled. The two man had clocked countless days and hours of journey together.

They became close. Rabin came to know Sharabi�s family intimately and quite frequently visited them at home. He attended the �brith� of Sharabi sons. When the driver received a new stereo system and the intricacies of setting it up escaped him, it was Rabin himself (a keen amateur of gadgets of all kind, optical and electronic) who rolled down on Sharabi�s living room carpet to connect left-right channels and to get the system to work.

Sharabi was equally accepted by the Rabin family. The PM came to trust his driver to the point of being able to send him home on personal mission such as to fetch his wallet �which is on the third shelf on the left, in the bedroom cupboard�. On many occasions Sharabi also drove the PM�s wife Leah Rabin on her shopping sprees or to meetings. When the driver had suffered a heart attack Rabin, always a heavy smoker, refrained from smoking in the car regardless of the time or distance of the journey. He cared about Sharabi.

The day before the rally Sharabi spoke to Rabin in the car and then spoke to him again on the phone on the following day. He asked the PM if he wants to be driven to the rally but Rabin replied that he hadn�t yet made up his mind whether to go or not. �Give me a shout if you do�, Sharabi concluded the call. In the event Rabin did decide to go to the rally, although he later had another engagement � a party at Ido Disenchik�s house near Zahala. Interestingly Eitan Haber, his MoD office director, and Ichilov�s director Dr. Barabash were also among the guests at that party. Rabin never rang Sharabi to come and fetch him despite the driver�s assurance that he was available. The drivers were switched and Menachem Damti was behind the wheel on the night. Who decided on the switch? "If only I were there, with me it wouldn't have happened", later lamented a grieving Sharabi.

According to hospital records the wounded Rabin arrived at ER at 9:52 (the Army Radio Galei Zahal broadcast that Rabin arrived at the hospital at 22:05 and that the trip to Ichilov took nine minutes). Damti repeatedly testified that that the trip to hospital didn�t last more that one to two minutes. Indeed, even during the mid-day rush hour of Tel Aviv, the less than a kilometre distance can be covered in less time. Unfortunately, according to the medical records Rabin arrived in a coagulatory state, i.e his blood started to coagulate. That indicates a ride duration of 5-8 minutes and possibly more, far longer than one or two minutes. Where did the veteran and experienced VIP driver Damti get lost during this time? 

Damti maintained that he lost his way. Rather then taking the shortest possible route, he drove instead in a roundabout way, even stopping at one point to pick up a policeman, the 24 years old Pinchas Terem, to guide him to hospital. As if the PM driver, who is supposed to know every street and alley and every escape route needed a guide�

Damti explained his confusion by the fact that Ibn Gvirol, the main artery road was blocked to traffic by police road blocks. Yet this is precisely the point of police roadblock � not to allow public traffic and to make any VIP convoy escape quicker. Further, in one testimony Damti said he drove through Bloch street, on to Arlozorov and Weitzman. In another he said he wanted to take the Shaul Hamelech route, still further away from the square (did he mean David Hamelech, which is actually the shortest route?).  So let�s understand what route Damti did take. Here�s a diagram (not to scale) of the scene with the immediate roads around it.   

Rabin�s car is parked facing West (Chen Avenue), with a GSS security closing car parked behind him, as the photo shows. The narrow utility road behind the Municipality building was blocked at the Ibn Gvirol end and formed part of the sterile zone, that is, no unauthorised personnel could enter it (except of course Yigal Amir). Unless the GSS security car first reversed and broke through the road blocks into Ibn Gvirol (and risked running down many onlookers in the process) and unless the PM limousine followed suit and similarly reversed into the main road, Damti had to leave the scene facing westward. That means driving around the square to emerge back into Ibn Gvirol. He would then have emerged almost straight in front of David Hamelech Road � the straight route to Ichilov. A quick bird�s eye view of the Tel Aviv center places the scene in the context of the city.

The black circle pinpoints the area in question. The enlarged zone below enables us to follow Damti different versions as well as the shortest route he should have taken.

                 GREEN ROUTE  -  THE SHORTEST WAY FROM THE SCENE TO ICHILOV
                 BLUE ROUTE    -  ONE OF DAMTI�S ALLEGED ROUTE
                 RED ROUTE      -  ANOTHER DAMTI ALLEGED ROUTE

               Corner no.1 indicates the point where, according to Damti, he stopped  to pick up policeman Pinchas Terem.

The above map is not to scale. In reality both the red and the blue routes are longer. The diagrammatic depiction of streets on the left, from a different map, gives a better indication of their relative lengths. As can be seen, taking either route except the shortest, would allow Damti to wander through several narrow back streets within the yellow area. Unfortunately for him, even that cannot account for the 8 or so minutes delay in his arrival to Ichilov.

Even more unfortunate for him, the eight-minute delay estimate is on the conservative side. The following document tells a far more chilling story.

Yigal Amir arrest form

This is the police arrest sheet of Yigal Amir. Astonishingly, Amir was arrested at 21:30. A police source said that, although mistakes can be made, generally the police is careful to note the precise time of arrest, because timings can be critical evidence in investigations. The precision is also evident from other arrest forms reprinted in Gefen�s Fatal Sting. 

Lest there are any lingering doubts that the policeman who filled in the arrest form made a mistake made, a small detail in one of the photos taken at the scene, as Amir is apprehended, attests to its veracity (left, inset). The police source was right. At this point the reader can hardly fail to note that, had Amir wanted to, he could have had the perfect alibi for the murder. Since the Shamgar Commission found that Rabin was shot at 9:45, it meant that Amir could simply not have committed the crime at that time because by then he was in police custody for a quarter of an hour already!

Rabin arrived at Ichilov at 21:52. Amir was arrested at 21:30, obviously after he had shot the PM. That means that Damti lied to both the Shamgar Commision and at Amir�s trial and that he went on a nightly Tel Aviv �sightseeing� for more than twenty minutes. Where did Damti go lost and what did he do for 22 minutes, driving with the wounded PM in the back of his car?

Shamgar concluded that there was no radio contact with the hospital. (None of the medical staff received advanced warning that the wounded PM is on his way.) Reporter Yuval Yoaz of Anashim Magazine interviewed Damti in December. With regard the rear back door seen on the Kempler video slamming shut �on its own� before anyone had entered the car: 

Damti: This was an armoured door with a special hinge that shut with the slightest movement or even if the car was parked on a slope. I'm no taxi driver but I could close any door just by moving the car a bit. Ask any inexperienced driver if he could close the door that way. 

The problem with that answer is that Damti was standing outside the car, not seated behind the wheel to move it. Nobody had yet touched the car or entered it, so how could he accomplish his feat (unless of course he used remote control....)?  Also unfortunately, the video shows that the front driver�s door remained opened when the rear right had shut 'itself'. So the car never moved, it wasn't parked on a slope and Damti is certainly no taxi driver. He is a liar. 

Yuval Yoaz: Why didn't you maintain radio contact with the Shabak or the hospital during the ride?

Damti: Where was there time to open the radio? I had one goal, to get to the hospital as quickly as possible. Besides, the airwaves were filled with talk. 

Another problematic answer. Damti didn�t apparently have time to open the radio but he did find time to stop and pick up a policeman. The prime minister's car must have had a secure bandwidth, but how could he know the airwaves were full of talk if he didn't open the radio?

Apparently Damti is prone to mixing facts. In a much earlier interview to television reporter Rafi Reshef shortly after the murder, Damti said that, "When the prime minister was descending the last step I saw someone on the right lift his hand and start shooting." But Amir only shot when the PM was about one meter from his car. 

Damti: �The shooter shouted, `It's nothing, they're not real bullets, they're blanks, this wasn't real�. The truth is that I myself believed that it was like that, that it wasn't real. Nonetheless, I did what they taught me. I jumped to the steering wheel. After twenty or thirty meters of driving, I asked the prime minister, `Are you hurt?' He answered, `Yes.'  Then I knew it was real and went into action. I asked him, `Where does it hurt?'  He answered, `Ay, Ay, it hurts in the back but not terribly.' Then I speeded up. Suddenly there was a barricade in the street. There were policeman manning it. The bodyguard (Rubin) shouted, "Go, go," but I stopped briefly and asked one of the policemen to guide me to the hospital." 

To the Shamgar Commission he told a different version: 

Damti: "The prime minister descended the steps and arrived to within half a meter of his armoured limousine. I opened the door for Mrs. Rabin, then I heard a blast. I drove away in a hurry. I was going to take Shaul Hamelech Street (!) but there were too many people. I wanted to take a short cut through Bloch Street but there was a police barrier there and I thought the whole street was barricaded. I told the bodyguard [Rubin] all the streets were blocked and he suggested I pick up a policeman to guide us. For some reason I received no communications on the route, as is usually the case(!). I pushed down on the gas, and despite the delay, arrived at the hospital in a minute and a half." 

"I wanted to take a short cut through Bloch Street" - the map shows us what kind of a 'short cut' that is. One of the longest possible cuts.

In the first story when they encountered a road block Rubin shouts: "Go, go". In the second story Rubin actually suggests picking a policeman up. Which version is true?

"For some reason I received no communications on the route, as is usually the case" - what does Damti mean "for some reasoon"?  He knows why, he said so himself - he never opened the radio...

The incredible story of the policeman Pinchas Terem is highly implausible. What was a sole policeman doing strolling alone Arlozorov at Weizman corner when on the night the entire police force was mobilised at the rally, with some further reinforcement brought in from neighboring centers?  Clearly the police was short of manpower, they could ill afford a loose officer at a lonely spot, far away from the rally.

According to Damti, he asked the PM if he was hurt and Rabin said yes, but it didn�t hurt that much. On another occasion Rubin testified that it was him that asked the question. Pinchas Terem testified at the Shamgar Commission but subsequently refused to give any further interviews. Shamgar asked him what were the first words he heard when he entered Rabin's car. Terem testified that the bodyguard Yoram Rubin told him to, "I'm wounded. Bandage me.".  

How absurd. There apparently lied the dying Rabin, gasping for his last breaths of air and all this brave bodyguard was interested in was his own superficial arm wound. Then the testimony becomes almost surreal. Shamgar asked what happened next and Terem testified that Rubin tore Rabin's shirt to make the bandage.

Rabin�s shirt?  Did he mean Rubin?  We hope so. If not, it means that either the Prime Minister must have had a spare shirt in the car or, more chilling, that Yoram Rubin must have ripped Rabin's bloody shirt off his back. Indeed, the whole episode seems surreal. As Rubin repeatedly testified, he and the PM jumped on the back seat of the car and he shouted to Damti to drive off. Since the injured PM was lying on the back seat and, as we shall shortly see, another young passenger was also somehow squeezed in there, the front right seat next to the driver would be empty. When Damti stopped the car to pick up Terem, the officer could not have squeezed in the back, so he must have sat in the front seat. The distance from Arlozorov - Weizman corner to Ichilov is about 100 meters, 5 to 10 seconds drive. Terem would not have had enough time to bandage Rubin. Besides, Damti had already gone lost for over 20 minutes, what could have happened to the �profusely bleeding� bodyguard in five more second? The story doesn�t stand.

It is equally inconceivable that Damti, a veteran VIP driver since 1974, lost his way to Ichilov and if he did, that Rubin lost his as well. Even if both lost their ways in that short distance, Damti could have easily radio his position and get instructions � except he didn�t turn on the radio. What was the reason that compelled him to stop the car and pick up Terem, when loosing even a few seconds ("I had one goal, to get to the hospital as quickly as possible") might have meant the difference between life and death for the injured Rabin? What could override such a consideration and what could have been more important than getting the PM in the shortest possible time to hospital?

And why was the injured Rabin driven in his own limousine to hospital when an emergency ambulance, kitted with first aid support, resuscitation equipment and medical staff was parked a few meters from his car?  Wouldn�t Rabin have stood a better chance of surviving the attempt if he received immediate medical attention? Some medical procedures administered to the PM in the ER room before being rushed to the operating theatre could have been started in the ambulance. These probing questions preoccupied the medical team in attendance at the rally for a long time.

That Damti had perjured himself became clear shortly after his testimonies. Suddenly, the infamous rear right door seen on Kempler�s video shutting itself without anyone�s aide, was dramatically explained. On the night of Rabin's funeral, Ifah Barak, an Israeli studying at Middlesex University in London was interviewed by the Channel Four news program, Midnight Special. She said, "I phoned Israel on Saturday night and my family was in shock. A friend of my sister's was in Rabin's car and the PM fell on top of her. She is now in hospital being treated for trauma." The editor of the Israel Bulletin of England, Chris Barder, located a video copy of this remarkable interview. The British reporter David Guyatt tracked down Ifah Barak and phoned her. She told him who was the fourth person in the car.

It was Damti�s daughter. It was since established that after Damti drove Rabin to the rally, with a couple or so free hours, he drove home and brought his two daughters and brother to the rally. The girls were seventeen year old Reut and her twelve year old sister. Reut was later photographed outside the car, mingling amongst the onlookers waiting for the PM to descent the stairs. While Reut and her uncle returned home �under their own steam�, the twelve years old was in Rabin�s car and it was she who closed the rear door. The Shamgar Commission had some harsh words for Damti for having brought members of his family to the rally.

The PM limousine, the golden-gray Cadillac, had mysteriously disappeared from all reports and there are no records of it being forensically examined, as is customary in such investigations. Perhaps the Shamgar Commission does contain reference to it, but if it does it must be in the secret part of its report, about a third of which is still hidden from the public. Nevertheless, there are eye witnesses who had managed to have a brief peak inside the car, as it was parked outside the Emergency Room at Ichilov. The witness told his story to Barry Chamish and Ya'acov Werker and swore to its authenticity. He also agreed to sign a legal declaration as to what he saw.  

"I came to work well after Rabin was admitted. I saw his Cadillac and no one was guarding it. So I looked inside and saw the two stains. Really, that's all I have to tell."

"Were you alone?"  

"No, there was another guard around named Tsur. I called him over and asked him what he thought. He looked in the car as well but we didn't know what it all meant. I'm not sure if he even does now."

"Shouldn't there have been more than two guards? What about ambulances?"

"No ambulances. They parked outside the ER. Rabin's car wasn't where incoming patients enter."

"Do you think that was strange?"

"No, the stain in the front seat is all that concerns me. Whose was it?"

For a possible answer to that we need to go back in time.  On 27 March 1996, as the verdict of Amir�s trial was broadcast live on the radio, a taxi driver drove a then unidentified passenger in his car on his way to Ichilov hospital. The story that passenger told the driver, as they both listened to the verdict, had him gasp in disbelief � so much so that he hurried to submit on 6.4.1996 a sworn testimony to the Israel  Supreme Court regarding what he heard. Although the testimony was in Amir's file, it was never made public. Journalist Alon Eilat was shown the document by attorney Gabi Shachar who, for a brief period had represented Amir. The journalist ultimately released it in the autumn of 1997.

I. T. (full name hidden because the witness feared retaliation) declare the following to be truthful.  On 27/3/96 the verdict in the trial of Yigal Amir was read. I am a taxi driver and at the time the verdict was announced over the radio, I was driving a tanned passenger, about 50 years old with silver-rimmed glasses from Yaffo to Ichilov Hospital in Tel Aviv. After hearing the Amir verdict, the passenger began a  conversation with me. He said Yigal Amir was right and according to the facts he couldn't have killed the prime minister even if he wanted to. I asked the passenger what he meant and he said one bullet was shot from less than 20 cm. away, the other, even closer and a third bullet of a different caliber was shot point blank.

     I told him those facts weren't published anywhere and that I didn't believe him. At this point the passenger showed me his identity card which read that he was a pathologist. I have forgotten his name but it might be Peretz. I was surprised to see he was a pathologist and then he told me he examined Rabin's body on the night of the murder.  I said that on the night of the murder, another pathologist announced on television that Rabin was shot by two bullets. I asked him if it's possible that after the announcement someone could have got to the operating room and shot Rabin again. The passenger didn't answer me but he smiled. I asked him if he was certain there were three bullets and he replied he examined Rabin's body and found three entrance wounds. During the course of the journey, the passenger told me that there was another dead body in the hospital that night and that according to his clothing and other signs he was positive it was of a bodyguard from the event that night. He told me that the government wasn't telling the whole story. He added that there was something about the prime minister's clothes they weren't telling either but he didn't elaborate.

                    That is my testimony and it is the truth.

So the pathologist said that another body was brought to hospital together with Rabin and judging by the clothes he was wearing, it must have been a bodyguard. The front seat blood stains may explain that mystery as well as corroborating the rumours that a bodyguard did indeed die on the night. If true, Damti must have been mortified in the car. And if he was, what about his poor young daughter?  No wonder she was treated for trauma. Recent reports suggest that, after the breakup of Damti's marriage, the girl is nowadays less than a well adjusted person, that she had run away on several occasions and was found and returned home by the police. We hope the young woman that she is today is well and that she had managed to overcome her painful memories.

And lastly...

Tel Aviv Magazine run a series of articles on 31.10.1997. One of them was entitled "What do they do today" - 50 people whose lives had been changed by the murder of Yitzhak Rabin.

Damti

"...When he died, something died in me too. Look, I since got divorced, I became a single parent and my life wasn't easy. But after his death, nothing is important"

"Why?"

"I underwent a sharp change the moment he died. When it happened, I told myself, what's this life, and what does it matter what happens....."

"You are still a driver of the Prime Minister office. Do you drive Netanyahu?"

"Rarely. I did at first, but due to various reasons it has stopped. I sometime drive Peres....."

Sharabi

"I drove with Rabin the Friday before the murder.... I asked him:  'Rabin, are you going tomorrow to the rally?  Because if you do I come'.  'No, I don't think that I'm going', he told me. 'Ring me if you do', I said, because I loved being with him at such rallies. But he didn't call, because he always preferred to let me spend time with my family. To this day I can't forgive myself. With me it wouldn't have happened".

"Why are you so sure?"

"I knew all the faces that screamed and cursed. With me a man like that wouldn't have stayed a moment near the car.... I also don't understand why they stood (parked) near a blocked exit. It's not customary. We've done it countless times, when there is a crowd in one place, they ask me to drive to the other side, and people who are waiting for Rabin suddenly hear that he's left. It was almost a routine, that's why I ask myself many questions about what happened there".

"What do you do today?"

"I moved at my request to work with the [MoD] Rehabilitation dept. and I drive invalids, grieving families, social workers. It is impossible to drive politicians after Rabin....  The most difficult is to see his family, and I see them all the time at functions. My heart shrinks because I habitually, automatically, search for his eyes amongst them .... "

Sharabi may well be right - with him it wouldn't have happened. The Shabak knew it, Rabin knew it. Sharabi loathed the GSS.  He also loathed the politicians around Rabin who kept scheming political 'dirty tricks'.  He often warned his friend and boss, during their long car rides, about what he chanced to overhear from time to time and Rabin always calmed his driver with a laconic "I know Yechezkel, I know". The minute Rabin was gone there was no reason for the veteran driver to keep working with the people he hated most. Knowing that Sharabi is 'unbendable' and would not join in any tricks that might have been played on the night, it is an intriguing question whether Rabin himself had intentionally mislead his long time, devoted driver about his attending the rally. We'll get back to this question later on.

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