AN ISRAELI military court found an army sniper guilty yesterday of the manslaughter of a British peace activist, but the victim’s family said the Bedouin soldier was being made a scapegoat by superiors.

It convicted Sergeant Wahid Taysir, 21, of unlawfully killing Tom Hurndall, 22, a photojournalism student who was shot while ushering Palestinian children to safety in the town of Rafah in April 2003.

But the verdict failed to satisfy the Hurndall family, who complained that the sniper had been “laid at the sacrificial altar of Israeli policy”.

Anthony Hurndall, Tom’s father, emerged from the hearing to accuse the Israeli military of operating “without any accountability whatsover” and conducting an “apparent tacit policy which seems to be in place that Palestinians are fair game”.

Mr Hurndall, a lawyer, said: “The finding of manslaughter against this particular soldier is obviously very important but it is only part of the culture that we are concerned with, the culture of impunity, the lack of accountability, the freedom with which soldiers feel they can shoot civilians in this area, and our son was unfortunately a victim of that policy.”

The case was brought only after Mr Hurndall visited Gaza and interviewed 13 witnesses who contradicted the soldier’s original, false account — initially corroborated by a colleague and accepted by Israeli commanders — that he fired on an armed man wearing a camouflage jacket.

Furious that his younger son, Billy, was detained at Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv as he flew into Israel for the hearing, Mr Hurndall said: “We think this goes much higher up the chain of command than this soldier.”

Shortly before the verdict, Taysir said that he had been singled out because he is an Arab.

“I did what I was ordered to do and I’m only here because I’m a Bedouin,” he told The Times. “If I were Israeli, for sure I wouldn’t be sitting here in custody.”

The court’s three-man panel, headed by Colonel Nir Aviram, unanimously convicted Taysir on six counts, including obstructing justice and giving false testimony. He denied all charges and plans to appeal.

The panel accepted the soldier’s final version, that he was “annoyed” with Mr Hurndall for entering a prohibited “special security area” near the Gaza-Egyptian border, and fired a shot intended as a warning but which hit him in the forehead. Sentencing will be in August and he faces up to 20 years in prison.

Israeli officials hailed the court’s verdict as a vindication of its willingness to prosecute soldiers and rebuffed allegations that solders routinely act without accountability.

Captain Hilla Gorni, the prosecutor, said: “This soldier was acting in violation of the rules of engagement, on his own.

“Naturally he would say now that he was told to act this way, but the investigation shows that it’s just not true.”

Israeli human rights groups say that prosecutions are extremely rare. Human Rights Watch said the army has investigated fewer than 5 per cent of the killings of Palestinian civilians since the start of the intifada in 2000.

The army says it has investigated 130 incidents in which soldiers opened fire against regulations and issued 28 indictments. These have resulted in six convictions and one acquittal, with the rest of the cases pending.

Mark Regev, a government spokesman, said that Taysir’s prosecution showed that Israel operated a just system.

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