The Tel Aviv District Court convicted former security guard Andrei Heifetz on Monday of manslaughter, for accidentally shooting his friend Oleg Bogoslavsky to death while the two were playing with their guns.

Presiding Judge Zacharia Caspi rejected a request by Heifetz's attorney, Kati Tzvetkov, to opt for a conviction on the lesser charge of causing death by negligence.

In December 2005, Heifetz and Bogoslavsky played a game in which they drew their weapons on each other, which were not loaded, cocked and pulled the trigger. After doing this twice, Heifetz placed his ammunition clip back in the gun, and put it on the table. Bogoslovsky wanted to play the game again, at which point Haifetz raised his gun, without removing the ammunition clip, cocked it and fired two shots, one of which hit Bogoslavsky in the chest. He succumbed to his wounds a short time later.

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The judge ruled that, despite the fact that he did not intend to kill his friend, Heifetz was aware of the great risk involved in playing with guns, was well versed in safety regulations and the use of firearms, and took an unacceptable risk that his friend would get hurt.

"In practice the defendant acted, according to the evidence, under the assumption that the risk would not materialize, but took no preventative action, such as checking the gun, paying attention to its weight, not cocking it, not pulling the trigger, and not pointing his gun at the deceased," wrote Caspi in his verdict. "Not to mention that fact that preventative action, in these circumstances, is completely avoiding playing with guns in this way."

Heifetz will be sentenced at a later date.