Islamic law stipulates that a killer of non-Muslims is to be punished more lightly than a killer of Muslims, so this is unsurprising. From UPI, with thanks to Twostellas:
Amman, Jordan, Jun. 13 (UPI) — Islamic-led professional associations in Jordan are pressing for the release of a soldier serving a life sentence for killing Israeli students.
The Syndicate of Jordanian Engineers, which is controlled by the Islamic Action Front, announced Monday that the coalition of 14 professional unions had asked the Committee for Combating Normalization of Relations with Israel to join efforts in organizing a national campaign to press for the release of Ahmed Dakamissa and others the group considers political prisoners in Jordan.
Dakamissa was sentenced to life in prison by a military court in 1997 after being convicted of killing seven Israeli schoolgirls who were on a school trip in the region of Baqoura on the Jordanian-Israeli border after Jordan and Israel signed a peace treaty in 1994.
Dakamissa, who was a soldier at the time, justified his act by saying he opened fire at the girls after they made fun of him while he was praying.
Dakamissa was perhaps inspired by the example of Muhammad:
Once the Prophet was offering prayers at the Ka’ba. Abu Jahl was sitting with some of his companions. One of them said to the others, “Who amongst you will bring the abdominal contents (intestines, etc.) of a camel of Bani so and so and put it on the back of Muhammad, when he prostrates?” The most unfortunate of them got up and brought it. He waited till the Prophet prostrated and then placed it on his back between his shoulders. I was watching but could not do any thing. I wish I had some people with me to hold out against them. They started laughing and falling on one another. Allah’s Apostle was in prostration and he did not lift his head up till Fatima (Prophet’s daughter) came and threw that (camel’s abdominal contents) away from his back. He raised his head and said thrice, “O Allah! Punish Quraish.” So it was hard for Abu Jahl and his companions when the Prophet invoked Allah against them as they had a conviction that the prayers and invocations were accepted in this city (Mecca). The Prophet said, “O Allah! Punish Abu Jahl, ‘Utba bin Rabi’a, Shaiba bin Rabi’a, Al-Walid bin ‘Utba, Umaiya bin Khalaf, and ‘Uqba bin Al Mu’it (and he mentioned the seventh whose name I cannot recall). By Allah in Whose Hands my life is, I saw the dead bodies of those persons who were counted by Allah’s Apostle in the Qalib (one of the wells) of Badr. (Bukhari, 1:4:231)