Report: Impending indictment, not holiday lockdown, prompted Litzman’s quitting

Sources in United Torah Judaism tell Army Radio the reason party leader Yaakov Litzman resigned from the cabinet earlier today was an impending indictment against him, and not the government’s coronavirus policy.

The sources say Litzman has been looking for a reason to resign for several weeks, before the attorney general makes a decision on whether to press criminal charges against him. If indicted, Litzman would be forced to resign as minister.

Last summer, police recommended that Litzman be indicted on charges of fraud and breach of trust for using his office to illicitly provide assistance to an alleged serial sex abuser, as well as on a separate bribery charge for helping to prevent the closure of a food business that his own ministry had deemed unsanitary.

The first case involves Malka Leifer, a former ultra-Orthodox girls’ school principal charged in Australia with 74 counts of child sex abuse. The police announced in February that they were investigating Litzman on suspicion that he had pressured employees in his office to alter the conclusions of psychiatric evaluations that had deemed Leifer fit for extradition.