U.S., Israel Grapple Over Teenage Suspect in Murder

JERUSALEM —  In a case that has sparked outrage in the United States and consternation in Israel, a teenage suspect in a grisly Maryland slaying has become the object of a heated extradition battle between the two countries.

Samuel Sheinbein, 17, and another teenager are charged in the death of Alfredo Tello Jr., a 19-year-old whose body was found dismembered and charred near Sheinbein’s home in suburban Maryland last month. Sheinbein fled to Israel--it is unclear how--and was arrested.

But Israeli authorities Thursday said they are still considering whether to comply with a U.S. request that the high school senior be sent back to Maryland to stand trial.

Sheinbein, whose father was born in Israel, may have Israeli citizenship status, which would bar his extradition, officials said. Under a law passed in 1978, Israel cannot extradite anyone who was a citizen at the time an offense was committed.

But the extradition issue is in doubt because of questions raised here about Sheinbein’s father’s own citizenship. A decision is expected next week.

For now, the dispute has opened a rift in U.S.-Israeli relations just as American officials have finally succeeded in winning agreement for a renewal of long-stalled peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians. With committee-level negotiations scheduled to resume here Monday, “this is not what we need right now,” a U.S. official said.

In Washington, the case has outraged several influential lawmakers. Rep. Bob Livingston (R-La.), a former prosecutor who chairs the House Appropriations Committee, threatened this week to “revisit” the $3-billion annual aid package to Israel if the case is not resolved. And U.S. officials, including Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, have left little doubt that the U.S. would prefer Sheinbein stand trial at home.

“I understand the problem, and I know the outrage felt when a crime of this significance has been committed,” Albright said Wednesday in a TV interview. She said she was working with the Justice Department in hopes that “we’ll be able to sort this out soon.”

Stung by the furor, Israeli officials were at pains Thursday to say they understand the desire of Maryland prosecutors to put the teenager on trial in the U.S. and are doing their best to cooperate. But the issue of whether Sheinbein is an Israeli citizen is more complicated than it appears, they said.

Irit Kohn, head of the Israeli Justice Ministry’s international department, said the crucial issue is the citizenship of Sheinbein’s father, patent lawyer Sol Sheinbein. If the elder Sheinbein was an Israeli national at the time of his son’s birth, citizenship was passed to his son automatically.

The teenager has never lived in Israel.

But Sol Sheinbein’s citizenship is now being questioned, even though he holds a valid Israeli passport. The issue turns on legal ambiguities that date from the first years of the Israeli state.

Sol Sheinbein was born in what was British-ruled Palestine in 1944. He left Israel in 1950, two years before Israel passed a law granting automatic citizenship to those in residence.

“It’s a very complicated legal issue that will be decided now by the Interior Ministry,” Kohn said. “It goes to the question of interpreting what was meant by ‘domicile’ at that time.”

Kohn said a determination will be made in the case by early next week.

“Israel and the United States have the same goal: to bring a [suspected] criminal to justice,” she said. “In the end, he will be tried here or there, but the goal is the same.”

Kohn said another concern for Israeli authorities is whether Sheinbein, if tried in Maryland and convicted, could be subject to the death penalty.

Israel has no capital punishment, and a condition of any extradition to the United States would be that the teenager would be exempted from the death penalty, she said.

Although U.S. Embassy officials have been in frequent contact with her since the case erupted last week, Kohn said, political pressure from the United States will not play a role in the decision.

“It will be made according to our law,” she said.

Even so, Israeli officials have made it clear to U.S. diplomats here and in Washington that they are embarrassed by the case and recognize its potential to damage Israel’s image with American lawmakers and the public.

“The government of Israel is aware that there are some good friends out there who are pretty exercised about this,” a U.S. official said.

Livingston first raised the issue in a meeting Tuesday with Albright and followed up with a letter asking her to intervene with Israel.

“The alleged murder took place in Montgomery County, Maryland, and that is where the youth should be prosecuted,” he wrote. “It is an outrage that Israeli authorities are refusing to extradite Sheinbein.”

Livingston later told reporters that “as a former prosecutor, I cannot stand by in good conscience and allow this situation to go unresolved. . . . I am prepared to revisit the issue of aid to Israel if Sheinbein is not returned.”

Although Livingston was not more specific, other sources said he is considering action to withhold $50 million in aid to Israel.

Meanwhile, Israel’s Justice Ministry will begin investigating Sheinbein in preparation for a possible trial in Israel. Two U.S. prosecutors and two police officers are expected to arrive here Sunday to help Israeli police with the case.

Israeli attorneys hired by Sheinbein’s family did not return phone calls Thursday.

A troubled youngster who once served time for burglary in a Maryland boot camp, Sheinbein was said to be awaiting word on his fate in a police lockup near Tel Aviv.

He and Aaron Needle, 17, of Rockville, Md., have been charged with first-degree murder in Tello’s death. Needle is in a detention center in Montgomery County.

Colleagues who worked with Tello in a tropical fish store have said that Needle often hung around the shop. They said Sheinbein and Needle followed Tello’s car after Tello’s last day at work.

Sheinbein’s father and brother Robert, 24, were also arrested in Israel on suspicion of obstructing justice. They were later released, but their passports were confiscated.

Trounson reported from Jerusalem, Meisler from Washington.