(Reuters) - Twelve years to the day he assassinated Yitzhak Rabin, the late Israeli prime minister's killer held a ritual circumcision for his new son on Sunday as supporters and protesters scuffled outside his prison.
Yigal Amir, who shot Rabin at a peace rally in Tel Aviv on November 4, 1995, became a father last Sunday. Jewish tradition dictates circumcision should be performed seven days after a son's birth. The child was named Yinon Eliya Shalom.
A court ordered prison authorities to arrange for Amir, an Orthodox Jew, to hold the ceremony in jail after his request to be granted leave and have the circumcision conducted on the outside was turned down.
Several dozen protesters scuffled with right-wing supporters of Amir outside Rimonim Prison in central Israel before his wife, Larissa, arrived with the couple's baby and relatives. Amir's younger brother waved the victory sign.
Amir has said he shot Rabin to stop him from handing parts of the biblical " Land of Israel", to the Palestinians in peace negotiations.
Tens of thousands of Israelis attended an annual memorial for Rabin on Saturday in the square where he was killed. His daughter, Dalia Rabin, said the court's decision to allow the circumcision to go ahead behind prison walls was "disgusting".
Amir, a polarizing symbol for hard-line nationalist supporters and for liberals who revile him, was allowed to marry three years ago and permitted conjugal visits after winning a series of court battles. His wife is a Russian immigrant who has four children from a previous marriage.