Israeli official accused of supporting school director involved in 74 sexual assaults

AFP

JACK GUEZ

Israeli Deputy Minister of Health Yaakov Leitzman

Israeli police have recommended accusing the deputy health minister of trying to support the case of a former director of a Jewish school who had escaped his extradition to the country. Australia, where she faces charges of badual badault.

Prosecutors will decide if they accept the police's findings and accuse Deputy Minister Jacob Litzman, who has denied any wrongdoing.

Australia is pressuring Israel to extradite Malka Lever, who fled Australia in 2008 with the help of what the Australian authorities regard as an ultra-Orthodox Jewish community, after the charges were made public, according to the report. AFP.

Lever is a former director of the Israeli Addas Israel Religious School for Jewish Girls in Melbourne. Australian police have imposed 74 charges of badual badault, including rape, against school girls.

An Israeli court ruled in 2016 that Lever, who denies the charges, is mentally indecent enough to be extradited and tried. She was arrested again in 2018 after a police investigation that questioned her about her mental health claims. She is currently in prison in Israel pending a decision on her extradition.

Litzman, who heads the Judaism United Torah party in the ruling coalition of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, has pressured court-appointed psychiatrists to support Lever's allegations of mental illness. the police in a statement.

Police said they found enough evidence to justify the charge of fraud, dishonesty and influence over the witness by the deputy minister. The minister has not been arrested.

"I've answered all the questions (from the police) and I firmly deny everything that she said," Litzman said in a video interview on Ynet's website, a few hours before the # 39, announcement of the police.

Source: AFP