JERUSALEM: The brother and key accomplice of the man who assassinated Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin is to be freed on Friday after more than 16 years in jail, Israel’s prison service said on Thursday.

“Haggai Amir will be freed on Friday morning from Ayalon prison after serving a sentence of 16 and a half years,” Israel Prison Services spokeswoman Sivan Weizman told AFP.

“He was sentenced to 16 years in prison for complicity in the murder of Rabin, and another six months for death threats he made against former prime minister Ariel Sharon,” she added.

Haggai Amir is the brother of Yigal Amir, who shot and fatally wounded Rabin at a Tel Aviv peace rally on November 4, 1995, in a bid to torpedo the Oslo autonomy accords with the Palestinians. He is serving a life term.

Neither brother has expressed any remorse for the killing and Yigal Amir remains incarcerated in a high-security jail under round-the-clock surveillance.