Michael Dekel, the newly appointed Deputy Minister of Defense, will be called in for questioning by the police shortly in connection with a West Bank land sales fraud for which two of his former aides already have been arrested, Israel Television reported last night.
Dekel, a Likud MK, was named to the defense post only last Wednesday. He was formerly Deputy Minister of Agriculture. According to reports in Yediot Achronot yesterday and on television, he is suspected of having known about the frauds allegedly abetted by Avi Tzur and Claude Malka, his former associates. Both were taken into police custody. Malka, who is now assistant to Transport Minister Haim Corfu (Likud-Herut), was released on bail today. Tzur remains in custody.
Tzur has been accused of taking bribes from West Bank land developers, one of them an Arab identified as Ahmed Ode, to secure government approval for new settlements. The case is focussed specifically on Kramim in the Samaria district, where Tzur allegedly provided the land developers with false documents indicating government approval when, in fact, no such approval had been forthcoming.
The documents were allegedly intended to dupe customers into buying land at Kramim under the false impression that it was an authorized settlement. Tzur is suspected of pocketing part of the money paid for the fake documents and passing the rest on to a Likud group known as “We Continue” which has been pressuring for intensified settlement activity in the territory.
According to Yediot Achronot, the police suspect that Dekel knew of Tzur’s illegal activities when he was an official of the Agriculture Ministry but failed to report it to the authorities. He also failed to alert potential land buyers that Kramim was not an approved settlement, although if asked directly, he would acknowledge that fact, Yediot Achronot reported.
REFUSES TO COMMENT
Dekel himself has refused to comment on the affair, saying only he would give his version at a suitable time. The fact that the police arrested his former aides only a day after the Cabinet approved his appointment to the Defense Ministry has raised an outcry in Likud that the police action was politically motivated. The Police Ministry is headed by a prominent Laborite, Haim Barlev.
Some Likud leaders have charged that Labor’s motive is to frighten would-be buyers of West Bank land in order to slow down settlement activity. Others have charged that the police ignored similar scandals involving Labor-affiliated institutions and kibbutzim.
Likud MK Ronni Milo filed a formal complaint with Barlev yesterday alleging that the police had allowed a prime suspect in a kibbutz financial scandal to leave the country.
The Civil Rights Movement (CRM), an opposition faction in the Knesset, promised over the weekend to provide police with further information on illegal land deals in the West Bank. The CRM supplied police several months ago with information on the alleged Kramim fraud. According to the CRM, documents it gave the police show that Dekel was warned as far back as 1982 of illegal acts being perpetrated in the Agriculture Ministry.
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