RAMLE (Reuters) -- Hagai Amir, the brother of the man who assassinated late Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1995, said he was proud of his own role in the murder plot after he was freed from prison on Friday.

Amir was released after serving 16 years for helping his brother murder Rabin, considering such plans as rigging his car with explosives and poisoning him before deciding to shoot him in a crime that shook Israel.

Yigal Amir, his brother, killed Rabin at a peace rally in Tel Aviv in 1995 and is serving a life sentence. He said he shot the politician to stop him from handing parts of what he believed were the biblical land of Israel to the Palestinians in peace negotiations.

On his release, Hagai Amir, who was also found guilty of planning attacks against Palestinians in the West Bank and later handed an additional one year term in prison for threatening to kill the then Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, was defiant.

"I am not regretful. I am proud of what I did," Amir, an Israeli Jew, told reporters as family members whisked him into a car and drove away.

Dozens of left-wing demonstrates gathered at the prison in central Israel to protest his release. "We will not forget, we will not forgive," they chanted.