Last update - 00:00 27/08/2007
Jewish Agency staffer arrested on suspicion of sexual assault
By Jonatan Lis, Haaretz Correspondent
Yigal Greenstein, a Jewish Agency representative in Germany, was arrested at Ben-Gurion International Airport on August 11 after a female coworker filed a complaint that he had sexually assaulted her within the past six months.
The gag order on the affair was partially lifted Monday, but still applies to details of the case pertaining to the complainant's identity.
The woman arrived in Israel several months ago and filed a complaint with police over the alleged incidents. The woman alleges that Greenstein forced her to have sex with him. She said that most of the incidents occurred in his office in Berlin, and on some occasions in his home in Germany. Following the complaint, police opened a covert investigation and began collecting evidence.
Greenstein was arrested when he returned to Israel two weeks ago. The Jerusalem Magistrate's Court placed him under house arrest and instructed him to refrain from approaching or contacting the complainant.
During the investigation, Greenstein linked himself to the events reported by the complainant, but claimed that they were all consensual.
Police are checking his version and noted that sexual relations between the two, even if consensual, would constitute a crime as the two were in a work relationship in which he was the woman's superior.
Greenstein's lawyer, attorney Boaz Gutman, told Israel Radio that he is puzzled by the fact that the woman did not file a complaint in Germany, and said that had she done so she would have been arrested for filing a false complaint.
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