Police says they’ve found evidence Jerusalem deputy mayor took bribes
Prosecutors to decide whether to indict Meir Turgeman; separate graft probe against Ramat Gan mayor closed due to lack of evidence
Jerusalem Deputy Mayor Meir Turgeman could be charged soon in several corruption cases, police announced Sunday after four months of investigation.
Turgeman (Likud) was arrested in March along with five others on allegations of bribery, fraud, breach of trust, abuse of power, theft and tax offenses.
Officials said Turgeman, who serves as chairman of the capital’s Planning and Building Committee, was suspected of accepting money in exchange for illegally advancing various interests.
A police representative said at the time that the probe involved one central case and several secondary cases, and that suspicions against Turgeman involved a hotel in the city center.
Police said in a statement Sunday that investigators had amassed a body of evidence sufficient to indict Turgeman, adding that the information would be handed to the state attorney’s office for a final decision on a possible indictment.
Evidence has also been established against other suspects regarding the separate affairs, police added.
Earlier Sunday, the state prosecution decided to close a corruption case against Yisrael Zinger, mayor of the central Israeli city of Ramat Gan, due to lack of evidence.
Zinger was suspected of receiving bribes from volunteer activists during the 2013 municipal elections in exchange for hiring them in the future if he is elected.
But more than two years after a decision to indict him, prosecutors said there was no evidence the activists had worked for Zinger in order to receive future jobs or that they regarded his promises as serious, adding that only one of the volunteers eventually received a low-level position and the rest of the promises weren’t fulfilled.
