Israeli court convicts Sara Netanyahu
ISRAEL - Sara Netanyahu, the wife of Israel’s prime minister, has been convicted of illegally misusing thousands of pounds of public funds on lavish meals. A Jerusalem court on Sunday accepted a plea bargain in which Netanyahu agreed to admit to a lesser charge than the original fraud accusations. She will pay about $15,000 in fines and reimbursements to the state. The sentencing ended one of the long-running cases against the family. However, Benjamin Netanyahu still faces the prospect of three corruption indictments later this year that may end his decade as leader and even result in a prison sentence. He denies all charges. According to the original indictment against Sara Netanyahu, of fraud and breach of trust, she and a government employee were accused of spending roughly $100,000 on catering from expensive restaurants between 2010 and 2013, despite having a inhouse cook provided by the state. In Sunday’s settlement, she admitted to taking unfair advantage of another person’s mishandling of state money and reduced the overspending charge to $50,000. Former caretaker Ezra Saidoff also reached an agreement with the prosecution and was fined $3,000. “As in every plea bargain, each side makes concessions, sometimes hard concessions,” said the prosecutor, Erez Padan, at the Jerusalem magistrates court. “It is right and proper for the public interest to bring this case to an end.” Netanyahu’s lawyer, Yossi Cohen, told the court his client had already been punished by public humiliation in the closely watched investigation. “Four years of ugly leaks and denigrations” constituted “inhuman punishment”, he said. “No other person could have withstood this. This lady is made of steel,” he added. The 60-year-old child psychologist has been a controversial presence at her husband’s side throughout his political career. In addition to the fraud case, she has faced mistreatment accusations from employees and was described in a newspaper as “Israel’s Marie Antoinette”. In 2017, Netanyahu was ordered to pay tens of thousands of pounds in damages in a dispute with two former domestic staff who accused her of bullying. She faces a third lawsuit from an employee who alleged staff were treated like “slaves”.
(The Guardian/ AFP)