(For more on the hunger-strikers: http://alternativenews.org/display.php?id=4121)
This week:
http://www.maarivenglish.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=article&articleID=10876
Hanegbi faces criminal investigation In wake of State Comptrollers report. Growing demands for him to tender his resignation. Yinon Keidari <mailto:contact at maariv.co.il?subject=Yinon%20Keidari>
Attorney General Meni Mazuz has ordered the police to begin a criminal investigation of their boss, Homeland Security Minister Tzahi Hanegbi.
This follows the State Comptroller’s recent report accusing Hanegbi of having systematically made illegal political appointments while at the Environment Ministry.
He is suspected of corruption, having used political appointments as bribes to purchase votes in the party’s central committee.
Director-General Shmuel Hershkowitz is also to be investigated, for having knowingly collaborated with Hanegbi and enabling him to make the illegal appointments.
Although other ministers have also committed similar abuses, none come close to the scale and volume of appointments made by Hanegbi. “Other ministers may have put a finger in the till, but Hanegbi seems to have put both his hands in the safe”, said a source in the Justice Ministry.
Another source put it even more bluntly. “Hanegbi has no sense of shame whatsoever. If you’re going to pee in the pool, at least have the decency and common sense to do it in a remote corner, not from the top of the diving board”.
Several MKs have demanded his resignation, saying there was no way the minister in charge of the police could continue to hold office while under a police investigation.