JERUSALEM: An Israeli soldier jailed for killing a British activist in the Gaza Strip will be released after serving six-and-a-half years of an eight-year sentence, media reported on Monday.
Sergeant Taysir Wahid was convicted of manslaughter for killing Briton Tom Hurndall, an activist with the pro-Palestinian International Solidarity Movement.
A military court ordered Wahid freed next month, accepting his lawyers claim that he deserved to have his sentence reduced for good behavior, the Ynet news website reported.
The army had no immediate comment.
The prosecution had argued that releasing the soldier early would harm Israel’s diplomatic ties with Britain, Ynet said.
Hurndall, then 22, was shot in the head in the Rafah refugee camp in April 2003. He died in January 2004 in a London hospital after spending nine months in a persistent vegetative state.
