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Knesset House Committee chairwoman Ruhama Avraham
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| By Ynetnews January 31, 2007 |
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Knesset Member Ruhama Avraham (Kadima) was interrogated Tuesday by the Police Fraud Investigation Unit over the Agrexco affair, after traveling abroad at the expense of an agriculture products manufacturer.
Avraham was interrogated for many hours on suspicion of receiving a bribe, fraud and breach of trust.
About three months ago, Attorney General Menachem Mazuz instructed police to launch a criminal investigation against Avraham, today the chairwoman of the Knesset's House Committee, and Shlomo Tirosh, the CEO of the Agrexco agriculture products company.
Avraham's office issued a statement in response: "MK Avraham was indeed summoned by the police and was interrogated for several hours. She provided full answers to all the investigator's questions.
"MK Avraham was pleased over the opportunity she was given to explain the facts as they are and she hopes that the investigation will be completed as soon as possible."
The Agrexco company said in response, "The investigation is the result of a complaint filed by business elements competing with Agrexco. These companies failed in the business competition and therefore filed the complaints, out of the desire to harm Agrexco in every way."
Two years ago Avraham and fellow MK Eli Aflalo traveled to the United States and Europe at Agrexco's expense, in violation of a Knesset Ethics Committee decree.
At the time Agrexo's CEO told the State Comptroller's Office that the trip was aimed at assisting Israeli farmers on the issue foreign worker employment and expose the MKs to Israel's agriculture markets in the US.
But Tirosh's justification for the trip did not suffice the Comptroller's Office, which said in a statement, "No reasonable explanation was given as to the connection between the issue of foreign workers and the trip abroad; if the purpose was to familiarize the MKs with Agrexco and its markets, then no explanation was given as to why the MKs spent most of the time in the US but only one day in Europe, which is the center of Agrexco's export business."
The comptroller said Tirosh should have been more attuned to the public's sensitivity regarding such trips, especially in light of the fact that a group of MKs embarked on a similar trip at the Knesset's expense only a year prior to Avraham and Aflalo's visit to the US and Europe.
The comptroller also questioned Agrexco's decision to send to MKs from the same party (both Avraham and Aflalo were Likud party members at the time).
Reprinted with permission from Ynet. |
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