The president of Israel, Isaac Herzog, has granted a pardon to Elor Azaria, a former Israeli soldier who in 2017 was sentenced to 18 months in prison for shooting in the head and killing, a year earlier, a Palestinian, Abdul Fata al Sharif, when he lay wounded on the ground after having stabbed a soldier in the West Bank city of Hebron.
Herzog has thus accepted the request that Azaria submitted last July for his criminal record to be automatically expunged, a process that, had it not been expedited, would not have been completed until 2032, according to information published by the "Times of Israel".
"The circumstances, the time elapsed, and the remorse expressed by Azaria justify allowing him to start a new chapter in his life," states a statement released by the president's office, which also mentions the proximity of the Jewish holiday of Yom Kipur, known as the Day of Atonement, as one of the factors taken into account.
The head of state has emphasized that the statute of limitations for the crime committed "has already expired" and has insisted that a "considerable" time has passed since the murder perpetrated by Azaria, currently a father of two children, ten years ago.
Azaria was found guilty of homicide and sentenced to 18 months in prison, although he ultimately only spent nine months behind bars. The authorities even allowed him to leave prison two days earlier than planned to attend his brother's wedding.
At the time of the events, the then-soldier shot at Al Sharif, a 21-year-old Palestinian, approximately eleven minutes after he had been wounded by gunfire and subdued after attacking an Israeli soldier with a knife in Hebron.