Former Israeli justice minister David Libai passes away at 89

Former justice minister and interior minister David Libai died on Sunday at the age of 89.

Libai, born in 1934 in Tel Aviv, served as justice minister for Labor as part of former prime minister Yitzhak Rabin's government from 1992-1996. 

A father of two, he was elected to become a member of Knesset for the first time in 1984 after working as a lawyer and in several public roles, such as the chairman of Labor's constitution committee and the head of the Israeli Bar Association.

During his 12-year stay in the Knesset from 1984-1996, Libai was the chairman of the State Control Committee and was a member of the Judicial Selection Committee.

Libai initiated three notable commissions of inquiry during his tenure as justice minister, among them the inquiries into the Cava of the Patriarchs massacre in 1994, in which Baruch Goldstein, a member of the far-right Kach movement, gunned down 29 Palestinian Muslim worshippers, wounding 125.

Libai also launched the commission of inquiry into the Yemenite Children Affair and the murder of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin following his assassination in 1995.

Yariv Levin mourns predecessor in Justice Ministry

Justice Minister Yariv Levin mourned Libai's death on Sunday: "Libai initiated throughout the years many laws that came to shape the Israeli rule of law," Levin said. "His contributions to the Israeli legal system during his longstanding public service were decisive and crucial."