French police arrest seven men, including a Jewish chaplain, two Jewish inmates, and director and a supervisor at one of France’s biggest prisons, on suspicion of taking bribes from a prominent Jewish convict with ties to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The director and supervisor employed by the Fresnes jail, in the suburbs of Paris, are suspected of having received bribes from Arnaud Mimran and a second Jewish inmate, Eric Robic, in exchange for preferential treatment. Nearly 280,000 euros were allegedly found during searches of the prison and of their homes on Monday, investigators say.
In this file photo taken on July 7, 2016, Arnaud Mimran arrives at the Paris courthouse for deliberations in his trial over an alleged carbon tax scam.(AFP PHOTO / BERTRAND GUAY)
Mimran, who has claimed in the past that he gave donations to Netanyahu, was jailed in July 2016 for eight years and fined one million euros for his part in a €283 million fraud involving the trade of carbon emissions permits and the taxes on them.
Robic was sentenced to five years in jail in December 2014 for a hit and run killing of 25-year-old Lee Zeitouni in Tel Aviv in 2011. Robic fled to France after the incident.
— with AFP
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From the Liveblog of
Tuesday, March 27, 2018
