Last update - 00:00 21/12/2006
Interior Ministry guard jailed for six years for taking bribes
By Nir Hasson, Haaretz Correspondent
The Jerusalem District Court on Thursday sentenced a former Interior Ministry employee convicted of accepting a bribe to six years in prison.
The man was also sentenced to a one-year suspended prison sentence and a NIS 15,000 fine for planning to accept a bribe in the form of sexual services.
Barak Cohen, who was employed as head of security at the Interior Ministry office in East Jerusalem, was convicted of accepting monetary bribes to the amount of NIS 500 to 700 per person from dozens of people in return for moving them ahead in line.
The bribe money was divided between Cohen, a second security guard, and a third man - Jamal Hajasy - who served as intermediary between Cohen and the public.
According to estimates, each of the men made NIS 15,000 in profit from the bribes.
Hajasy was sentenced to four-year incarceration, a one-year suspended prison sentence, and a NIS 15,000 fine.
Cohen was caught attempting to solicit sexual favors from an undercover policewoman in exchange for pushing her ahead in line.
In his verdict, Judge Moshe Ravid wrote that "the shameful situation in which people knock on the ministry's door in vain, in order to receive service, became fertile soil for a tree that gave forth rotten fruit." The judge added that Cohen acted as a "tyrant."
The court concluded the sentence by stating the citizens discovered that they were receiving services "not from a state governed by law and fixed regulations, but from a state run by bribes."