Israel frees two prisoners from the Golan Heights

JERUSALEM - Two prisoners originally from the occupied Golan Heights were released unexpectedly on Thursday after serving 25 years in an Israeli jail, one of the former inmates said.

Bisher Suleiman Ahmad Maqt, 44, said he was freed suddenly despite having 12 years of a 37-year sentence left to serve. Also released was Assem Mahmud Ahmed Wali, who had two years left on his sentence.

“I feel like I have been born again,” Maqt told AFP by telephone as he was taken by family members to his home in the town of Majdal Shams in the Golan.

Israel captured the strategic plateau from Syria in the 1967 Six-Day War and unilaterally annexed it in 1981. Damascus has repeatedly demanded its return as a non-negotiable condition for peace.

Israeli officials were not immediately available for comment.

Maqt — who said he was jailed for “resisting Israeli occupation” — said no reason was given for his early release.

But he believed it might be connected with an expected prisoner exchange between Israel and the Islamist Hamas movement, which is holding captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit inside the Gaza Strip.