The Jerusalem Post editorial board writes:
…Lifer Rafi Nahmani murdered Tel Aviv District Court judge Adi Azar while on furlough in 2004. In a country with no capital punishment, this professional assassin had nothing to lose. Common sense should have denied him leave. It didn't.
The contract hit on Azar was no bolt from the blue. The two teens who murdered taxi driver Derek Roth for kicks in 1994 also enjoyed leave from prison. During one furlough they held up a grocery and badly wounded its proprietors.
The prison authorities refused them further furloughs, but the violent robbery did not persuade a judge to rule likewise. One of the slayers - Moshe Ben-Ivgi - fled abroad during a subsequent furlough that he was supposed to spend at home under his father's supervision. He has since been extradited from Argentina.
Other vacationing prisoners abscond. "Southern rapist" Meir Assur, who once terrorized the Negev, was allowed a time-out too, despite the nature of his crime and the high recidivism rate of sex offenders. He disappeared, and long eluded capture.
Furloughs are even granted to husbands convicted of domestic abuse. Many return home to kill.…
Why this sudden attention to prison furloughs? This.