Jailed ex-Ramat Gan mayor asks president for pardon
Citing deteriorating health, Zvi Bar asks to be released after serving six months of a three-year sentence
Add ToI as a Preferred Source on Google
A former mayor of Ramat Gan jailed for accepting bribes asked for a pardon on Monday despite having served only six months of his three-year sentence.
Zvi Bar, 81, appealed to President Reuven Rivlin to pardon him, citing deteriorating health, advanced age, and years of public service.
Bar began serving his sentence in Ma’asiyahu Prison on February 1, in the same wing where former prime minister Ehud Olmert was jailed at the time. He has since been paroled.
The Tel Aviv District Court convicted Bar of bribery, breach of trust, money laundering and tax evasion last year and sentenced him to five and half years in prison.
It ruled that Bar, who served as the mayor of the Tel Aviv suburb for nearly 25 years, accepted hundreds of thousands of shekels in bribes in exchange for promoting a number of real estate projects during his term in office.
According to court documents, all of the offenses took place between 2003 and 2008, when Bar also served as a director on local and provincial planning agencies.
In December, the Supreme Court upheld his conviction, but added that although he “systematically accepted bribes” during his term in office, his age and medical condition warranted his sentence be reduced to three years.
Bar was also ordered to pay fines of NIS 800,000 ($224,000).
The Times of Israel Community.