An Israeli official who was responsible for assassinated Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin's security has called for a new investigation into the killing on the tenth anniversary of his death.
Dror Yitzhaki, who headed the Shin Bet internal security services' bodyguard unit at the time of the assassination, brushed off conspiracy theories that the ultra-nationalist killer, Yigal Amir, was not the lone gunman.
But his call for a new inquiry will almost certainly fuel far-right activists who have long called for another investigation.
Amir fired the three shots that killed Mr Rabin on November 4th, 1995, after the Nobel Peace Prize laureate attended a peace rally in Tel Aviv. He was sentenced to life in prison and has become an icon for some hardline Israelis who oppose the establishment of a Palestinian state on land Israel has occupied since the 1967 Mideast war.
Excerpts from Mr Yitzhaki's first interview since the assassination were broadcast yesterday.
Yitzhaki, who resigned after the assassination, said he took responsibility for the failure of his bodyguards to prevent the killing, including "the activity of the security guards who had been trained for years . . . that the second bullet - if not the first - would be theirs".
The bodyguards did not fire a single shot, and Amir was arrested on the spot.
But five months before the assassination, a sergeant from the army's intelligence unit overheard a conversation in a public restroom about a "little Yemenite guy" who had a handgun and had serious intentions to kill Mr Rabin, but that information was never passed along, Mr Yitzhaki said.
Mr Amir's family immigrated from Yemen.
Since questions remain about the events leading up to the assassination, Mr Yitzhaki said he wonders "whether there is room to set up another state inquiry to investigate the truth."