Israel requests German assistance in Deri probe
Authorities turn to Berlin for details on real estate deal between minister’s brother and Austrian Jewish businessman
Israel has appealed to Germany for assistance in the ongoing investigation of interior minister and Shas party chairman Aryeh Deri on suspicions of fraud.
The request pertains to details of a real-estate deal between Shlomo Deri, the building contractor brother of the Shas chief, and Austrian Jewish businessman James Schlaff, Channel 10 News reported Monday. Schlaff is the brother of Martin Schlaff, who was in the past suspected of bribing late prime minister Ariel Sharon.
Shlomo Deri was questioned under caution in April as part of an investigation into suspected irregularities in the Shas leader’s real estate holdings.
Police investigators searched his home and office this week, and both he and his daughter were brought in for questioning for two separate suspicions related to graft and financial irregularities.
Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit announced on March 31 that a criminal investigation would be opened against Aryeh Deri for suspected corruption, after fresh fraud allegations were leveled against him.
The investigation centers on unreported real estate owned by Deri and members of his family, including a vacation home in northern Israel and apartments owned by each of his nine children.
A joint team of detectives from the Lahav 433 police anti-corruption unit and the tax authority is investigating the minister’s brother.
Shlomo Deri said that he had paid for most of the vacation villa in the community of Safsufa near Mount Meron, and insisted that the transaction was entirely legal.
Shlomo Deri has already sued the financial daily Globes for an article reporting that he had paid only NIS 4.25 million ($1.12 million) for an apartment complex he bought from brother Aryeh in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Givat Shaul that was actually worth NIS 12 to 15 million ($3.17-3.97) and for describing the deal as a fraudulent act and a straw deal. He said Aryeh Deri bought the plot in 2010 for NIS 3.7 million ($980,000) because he had planned to build a house for himself on it.
The report said the whole complex had belonged to an acquisitions company that had built two residential towers nearby and that Shlomo Deri purchased the empty plot from Aryeh for NIS 10 million ($2.65 million), but registered it in Aryeh’s and Aryeh’s family’s names before going on to build a five-apartment building on it.
Shlomo explained that the building had remained in Aryeh Deri’s name because the process of transferring ownership to the property acquisition company took so long.
Aryeh Deri, who has served a prison sentence for graft offenses that took place during his previous tenure as interior minister, has sought to downplay allegations about his real estate holdings and said he would cooperate with the investigation to prove his innocence.
The Times of Israel Community.