The brother of the man who assassinated an Israeli prime minister in 1995 is to be released from jail this week.

Yigal Amir shot and killed Yitzhak Rabin at a peace rally on November 4 1995. He later claimed that he wanted to protest against the prime minister's support for the Oslo Accords with the Palestinians.

His brother Haggai, considered the primary accomplice of the killer, was sentenced to 16 and a half years in jail for his role in the assassination and for making death threats against Ariel Sharon when he was Israeli premier.

Sivan Weizman, a spokeswoman for the Israel Prison Services, said Haggai Amir would be released on Friday after serving his time.

The Amir brothers have consistently expressed the belief that they did the right thing in carrying out the murder. Yigal Amir remains in prison serving a life sentence.

Dalia Rabin, daughter of the assassinated leader, told Ynet: "A responsible leadership in the state of Israel has the duty to say its piece – that people like that belong behind bars forever, or should at least be shunned."

Mr Rabin died a year after he was awarded the 1994 Nobel Peace Prize together with Shimon Peres and Yasir Arafat for their work on the Oslo Accords. In 1994 he oversaw the negotiations for a historic peace treaty that made Jordan the only Arab country other than Egypt to recognise Israel.