Supreme Court upholds Aryeh Deri’s appointment as minister

8 May 2016, 5:47 pm

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The Supreme Court rules that there is no legal cause to intervene in the decision to appoint Aryeh Deri as interior minister despite his criminal past in the role.

Deri, who was released from prison in 2002 after serving 22 months for embezzlement committed during his tenure as interior minister in the 1990s, was reappointed to the position in January 2016 after stepping down as economy minister.

Aryeh Deri gives a statement to the media during a conference at the Ramada hotel in Jerusalem, on March 30, 2016. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

“The court found that the fact that Deri served in a series of senior positions in the Interior Ministry while carrying out the offenses indeed bears symbolic meaning and further damages the public’s trust vis-a-vis his appointment as economy minister,” the court says in a statement, “but it ruled that the appellant did not succeed in proving that there is a direct and clear link between the offenses committed by Deri… and the specific role of interior minister.”

The court says that before handing down its decision, it was updated on a new graft investigation against Deri, but that the ongoing probe has no bearing on his appointment.