JERUSALEM (AP) — The unrepentant brother of the man who killed Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was released from prison today after serving 16 1/2 years for complicity in a murder that stunned Israel and according to some destroyed an opportunity for peace.
Hagai Amir, 43, is not known to have expressed remorse for his role in the death and upon his release he told Israel Radio, “I am proud of what I did.”
Amir helped plan the 1995 killing. His brother Yigal Amir, an ultra-nationalist Jewish extremist, is serving a life sentence for gunning down the prime minister after a Tel Aviv peace rally.
Channel 2 TV showed several dozen peace activists outside the prison ahead of Amir’s release holding signs reading, “We won’t forgive, we won’t forget.” As Amir exited the prison and was whisked away in a white van, they chanted “disgrace.”
Amir was greeted by his mother and was expected to be taken to a relative’s house in a Jewish West Bank settlement for his first night of freedom.
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