Last update - 00:00 22/11/2006
AG: No probe of Hirchson over hiring illegal foreign workers
By Yuval Yoaz, Haaretz Correspondent
Attorney General Menachem Mazuz decided Wednesday against calling for a criminal investigation of Finance Minister Abraham Hirchson (Kadima) over his employment of a foreign worker from the Philippines who did not have the correct permit. Hirchson was also accused of arranging employment for her husband with his son.
Nevertheless, Mazuz transferred the information regarding the matter to the Knesset, where it is being dealt with by the parliamentary ethics committee. The panel became involved after a complaint of conflict of interests was brought against Hirschson in the wake of his participation in a Finance Committee debate on the issue of foreign workers, while the woman was still in his employ.
The matter first came to light in November 2004, when Hirchson was a Knesset member. Channel 1 television reported that the woman arrived in Israel in 1992, in order to care for Hirschson's sick wife.
When his wife passed away in 1995, the Immigration Police said, Hirchson received a permit for the woman for another four years so that she could help take care of his children.
During that period, the Employment Service was issuing permits on humanitarian grounds, but these generally applied only to foreign laborers working with the sick and disabled. Today, it is impossible to obtain permits for foreign laborers who care for sick or disabled children.
The woman's work permit expired in 1999, and, according to the Immigration Police, since then she has been working without the correct authorization.
Her husband arrived in Israel legally and worked for five years as a nurse for an elderly man. But the Immigration Police said that when the man died, Hirchson arranged for him to find employment with his son, despite his lack of the necessary permit.
Immigration Police arrested the woman during a raid in south Tel Aviv, as she was walking the Hirchson family dog. When she was asked to produce her papers, the woman took police officers to the minister's home and showed them her passport.
Hirchson was also asked to show his identification, which he did without telling police that he was a Knesset member. The police, who did not recognize Hirchson, told him to attend an investigation due to suspicions that he had employed an illegal foreign worker.
Only when he arrived at the police station did investigators realize that Hirchson was an MK and therefore Knesset authorization was required to question him.
Hirchson said in response that the foreign worker had looked after his wife for six years, during which time she had been unconscious, and that his young children viewed her as a surrogate mother.
He said that the woman had worked legally for him for six years, after which he asked the Interior and Labor ministries to extend her work permit. He denied that his son had employed the woman's husband.