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The Cyber Department of the State Attorney's Office today (Sunday) submitted an indictment to the District Court in Haifa against Kiryat Motzkin Mayor Haim Tzuri, who is accused of bribery and fraud.
Indictments were also filed against two officials in the municipality who were close to Zuri, as well as against a resident of the city.
The indictment attributes two different charges to Zuri.
According to the first indictment, the mayor is accused of accepting bribes together with Yossi Doak, a local owner in the Kiryat area and who served as the deputy mayor and is considered to be close to him.
According to the claim, during the year 2017 Tzuri and Doak approached Dobi Spiegler, a resident of the city who at the time was active in the "New Spirit" faction that is running in the local authority elections against Tzuri's faction, and offered him and his wife a job in the municipal framework.
This, in exchange for the transfer of information and content from a WhatsApp group of New Spirit faction activists.
This, while taking advantage of the power of Tzuri's servant in order to bring about the employment of Spiegler and his wife.
According to the second indictment, Zuri is accused of unlawfully violating the privacy of the city's residents, this after he used information about their affairs that was given to the municipality for the benefit of its day-to-day management - for his personal-political needs.
According to the charge, this data was used in order to collect information of a political nature about the residents, record it in a database software used by the municipality, and transfer it to various parties.
Along with Tzuri, Yossi Stelkol, an employee of a company that worked with the municipality of Kiryat Motzkin, as well as the brother of lawyer Boaz Stelkol, who represented Tzuri and his faction in the past and was one of the candidates for the municipality's ombudsman, is also accused of the crime.
Accused of bribery and fraud.
Mayor of Kiryat Motzkin, Haim Tzuri (photo: courtesy of the photographers, PR)
In addition, Tzuri is accused of fraudulently receiving funds from the municipality's budget, which he used to develop upgraded database software, which was designed to serve, among other things, his personal-political needs.
This, despite the fact that its development was budgeted from the municipality's budget.
Later, following the publication of a journalistic article that exposed the suspicions of some of the acts attributed to Tzuri, as well as against the background of an appeal to the municipality to receive a response to the crime alleged in the article - Tzuri carried out various actions that attribute to him the offense of obstruction of justice.
This, after going to prevent and damage the investigation while hiding evidence and more.
Zuri is charged with crimes of bribery, fraud and breach of trust, fraudulently obtaining something, invasion of privacy and obstructing legal proceedings.
At the same time as the indictments, a notice was submitted of a plea agreement against the bribe giver, in which the court is asked to convict the resident of the city of Spiegler, according to his confession, of giving a bribe to Zuri.
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Use the residents' databases for political purposes.
Created in 2018 (photo: Walla! NEWS system, --)
After the indictment was filed, the legal advisor to the government submitted a request to suspend Mayor Tsuri from his position.
The request states, among other things, that the indictment attributes to the defendant serious offenses of abuse of his power and position, therefore a situation in which he continues in office must be prevented.
"Shame on the prosecutor's office and everyone who had a hand in the matter. Stitching up cases, shame," Mayor Haim Tzuri responded to the accusation in a post he published on his Facebook account.
"Justice will come to light, I have patience and strength. The prosecution's caseload has now reached our doorstep."
He also added that and detailed the charges attributed to him.
"Bribery - I gave a job to help in kindergartens. Use of databases - I called the residents of the city to say happy birthday. Disruption of investigative procedures, and this even before an investigation was opened," he claimed.
The 78-year-old Tzuri has served in the city council for about 35 years, of which about 29 years as the third mayor who in the last elections held in 2018 won 59 percent of the voters' votes.
It was also reported that Tzuri is considering running for mayor again this coming November.
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