Friday November 5 4:56 AM ET Peres Wants Rabin Killing Investigated Again By Jeffrey Heller

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel's former Prime Minister Shimon Peres called Friday for the reopening of the investigation into the 1995 assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, echoing demands by the family of the late leader.

``I am concerned that there are people -- Rabin's family -- who believe there is still something to examine, so we must investigate,'' said Peres, who took over as prime minister after Yigal Amir, an ultranationalist Jew, gunned down Rabin.

Conspiracy buffs [concerned citizens - my comment - one of which, in my opinion, is Barry Chamish] have long speculated the Shin Bet security service, in charge of protecting Rabin, was involved in the assassination, an allegation that found no support in the report of an official commission that investigated the killing.

``There are things hanging in the air...and we must investigate again so that everyone is convinced matters were looked into properly,'' Peres, now minister of regional cooperation in Ehud Barak's government, told Israel Radio.

Barak, who has described Rabin as his mentor, said he was confident ``every question raised would be examined and clarified.'' But he told reporters he had yet to receive a direct request for a re-examination of the killing.

Conspiracy theorists [concerned citizens - my comment - one of which, in my opinion, is Barry Chamish] have also pointed to alleged discrepancies in findings by a doctor who examined Rabin after he was shot and the pathologist who conducted his autopsy.

The head of the inquiry board, former Chief Justice Meir Shamgar, said the medical data were identical. His commission found no evidence of a conspiracy and a court subsequently sentenced Amir to life imprisonment.

Daughter Says Questions Unanswered

Rabin's daughter Dalia Rabin-Pelosoff, in a recent magazine interview in Israel, added fuel to the public debate by saying she was perturbed by ``many unanswered questions.''

Rabin's widow Leah and son Yuval have also come out in favor of re-investigating the assassination, which occurred four years ago this week at a Tel Aviv peace rally.

But Shamgar told Israel Radio Friday he would not object to a new investigation if it eased the family's concerns.

In an information gap seized upon by conspiracy theory supporters, the Shamgar commission failed to determine the identity of a person who yelled ``blanks, blanks'' after the shots rang out.

And many Israelis are puzzled over the role played by Avishai Raviv, an undercover Shin Bet agent code-named ''Champagne.'' He infiltrated ultranationalist ranks and is now on trial on charges he failed to prevent the assassination.

``My mother heard the shouts ('blanks, blanks') with absolute certainty,'' Rabin-Pelosoff told Israel's La'isha magazine. ``She called me at home immediately after the shooting and said, ''They shot Daddy, but it wasn't real.'''

Moreover, Rabin-Pelosoff said, security men who took her mother to Tel Aviv's Ichilov hospital, where doctors pronounced Rabin dead, told her the bullets were not real.

``Why did they tell her it was an exercise? An exercise? Really! And what about the oh-so-vital instincts of the security men? Why didn't they shoot the killer immediately? How come they didn't open fire?'' Rabin-Pelosoff added.

But in a radio interview Thursday, Rabin-Pelosoff said she did not believe the Shin Bet had been involved in the killing. ''Such an idea is horrible. However, it is legitimate that it should arise in view of all the unanswered questions.''