Likud lawmaker Haim Katz will likely support Gideon Sa’ar for party leader in next week’s primary, Channel 12 reports.
Katz, a former welfare minister, retired as minister in the summer after Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit announced that he plans to indict him on fraud and breach of trust charges.
The veteran Likud MK had also been a criminal suspect in a second separate corruption investigation relating to his time as head of the Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) workers’ union, but Mandelblit notified Katz’s legal team that he has decided to close that case against the minister.
According to the TV report, the IAI union will also back Sa’ar in the Likud leadership race.
The labor union at IAI, which employs some 16,000 people and is Israel’s largest state-owned company, is known as a Likud stronghold.
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From the Liveblog of
Sunday, December 15, 2019
