Last update - 00:00 17/06/2007
Senior civil servant jailed for 4 years over fraud, money laundering
By Eli Ashkenazi, Haaretz Correspondent
A Nazareth District Court on Sunday sentenced the former head of the northern bureau of the Prime Minister's Office to four and a half years in prison for financial crimes.
Eli Dahan, who served as a senior civil servant for over five-years, was convicted of accepting bribes, committing fraud and laundering money in excess of NIS 25 million.
"[Dahan is guily of] financial crimes, carried out by taking advantage of his position and systematic abuse of others, and demand [the court] address them severly," Nazareth District Court Judge Binyamin Arbel said in his decision.
"As I deliver the defendants sentencing, I see before my eyes the image of the complainants who testified in my courtroom," Arbel added. "Among those complainants that stood out were those who toiled their entire lives, saving every penny; [their money] taken from them through the man's promises, all of which went up in smoke. Within a two-year period, the defendant cheated many people of their money, without distinguishing between those who painstakingly saved over years, and others, people of means, financiers. Both groups, he managed to fool with guile to give him their money -fortunes- promising them massive profits which were unobtainable."