AMMAN // A Jordanian soldier convicted of killing seven Israeli school girls two decades ago has been released from prison after serving his sentence.
Ahmad Daqamseh was in his family home in the village of Ibdir near the city of Irbid in northern Jordan, family sources said.
“The authorities released Ahmad Daqamseh this Sunday around 1am after he finished his jail term. He is now a free man,” his cousin Mohammed Yahya Daqamseh said.
In July 1997, a five-member Jordanian military tribunal found Corporal Daqamseh guilty of opening fire at a group of Israeli schoolchildren and killing seven of them before soldiers seized him and rushed to help the victims.
The incident took place on March 13 of that year during a school field trip in the border area in Jordan.
Daqamseh would have faced the death penalty but the tribunal said he was mentally unstable and was given a life sentence which is equivalent to 20 years under Jordanian law.
A few days after the incident, the late King Hussein personally apologised for the attack, travelling to Israel to visit and pay his respects to the families of the slain girls.
* Reuters and Agence France-Presse
Family reunited
Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe was born and raised in Tehran and studied English literature before working as a translator in the relief effort for the Japanese International Co-operation Agency in 2003.
She moved to the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies before moving to the World Health Organisation as a communications officer.
She came to the UK in 2007 after securing a scholarship at London Metropolitan University to study a master's in communication management and met her future husband through mutual friends a month later.
The couple were married in August 2009 in Winchester and their daughter was born in June 2014.
She was held in her native country a year later.
The Sand Castle
Director: Matty Brown
Stars: Nadine Labaki, Ziad Bakri, Zain Al Rafeea, Riman Al Rafeea
Rating: 2.5/5
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The Bio
Hometown: Bogota, Colombia
Favourite place to relax in UAE: the desert around Al Mleiha in Sharjah or the eastern mangroves in Abu Dhabi
The one book everyone should read: 100 Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. It will make your mind fly
Favourite documentary: Chasing Coral by Jeff Orlowski. It's a good reality check about one of the most valued ecosystems for humanity
