Israeli Convicted in Muslim Plot By JACK KATZENELL .c The Associated Press JERUSALEM (AP) -- A Jewish militant was convicted Tuesday of plotting to hurl a pig's head into Islam's third holiest site, located in Jerusalem. Damian Peckovich and an alleged accomplice were arrested in December 1997 and charged with plotting to catapult the attack on the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound. Jerusalem District Court judge Moshe Ravid wrote in his verdict that if the plot had succeeded, it could have led to war with the Muslim world and perhaps even to the destruction of Israel. ``It could have undermined the foundations of the state and perhaps its existence,'' he wrote. Peckovich was convicted of sedition, arson, desecration of a holy site, incitement to violence, offending religious feelings and other related charges. He could face up to 38 years in jail. Sentencing will be carried out at a later date. The act was to be carried out during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, when thousands of worshipers would have been at the compound. To Muslims, the pig is ritually impure and such an act would undoubtedly have inflamed the feelings of the worshippers. Two years ago, clashes between Israelis and Palestinians broke out after an Israeli woman posted drawings depicting the Muslim prophet Mohammed as a pig. She was sentenced to two years in jail and her actions brought condemnation from across the Muslim world. The verdict on Peckovich's accomplice, Avigdor Eskin, is to be handed down on April 12. Peckovich was also convicted of laying a pig's head on the grave of a revered Muslim cleric and setting fire to the Jerusalem office of Dor Shalom, a peace group established by Yuval Rabin, son of the murdered Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. The office was damaged but nobody was hurt. Eskin served four months in jail in 1997 for placing a death curse on the late premier, two weeks before Rabin was assassinated by right-wing extremist Yigal Amir in November 1995.
