Israeli businessman held in Guatemala for bribery
Uri Roitman suspected of wrongdoing in bid to win lake clean-up contract in broader case involving senior politicians
An Israeli businessman was arrested Tuesday in Guatemala on suspicion of bribing an official to secure a government contract to clean up a polluted lake in the central American country, Israel’s Channel 10 reported Thursday.
Also involved in the case are senior Guatemalan political figures and a relation of the country’s deputy president.
Uri (Hugo) Roitman won a government contract to clean up Lake Amatitlan, close to Guatemala City, which had become polluted by large quantities of untreated sewage and industrial effluent.
In early 2015, the Lake Amatitlan Authority commission granted the $18 million contract to the Israeli company M. Tarcic Engineering Ltd., represented by Roitman, to provide 93,000 liters of a special decontaminant.
In March 2015, Guatemala’s then-vice president Roxanna Baldetti suspended the project, froze payment and stopped use of the decontaminant after a wave of complaints from scientists, academia, politicians and environmentalists who raised questions about the contract.
Baldetti resigned in May 8, 2015, after a United Nations anti-corruption probe led to the arrest of 24 people suspected of involvement in an import bribery scheme.
Guatemalan media reported that Roitman’s “winning formula” not only failed to improve conditions in the lake but allegedly made them worse.
According to Channel 10, the man who supplied the formula, Israeli Hanan Elraz, made headlines in 2013 when the Israeli Health Ministry issued a warning and an order to stop production of his vegetable-based cancer treatment kits. The ministry said the cream in the kit contained a substance which may pose a danger to public health.
Roitman has denied wrongdoing.
Following his arrest, he told Guatemalan media, “I don’t need this. I have been giving to Guatemala for more than 30 years. We’ve donated schools, people know me, I provide 1,030 jobs. I’m not a criminal and not a politician who steals. You know more than I do. I don’t need to run away and therefore I am ready to cooperate with you.”
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