President Reuven Rivlin determined Monday to reject a former minister’s request for clemency, citing “serious violations of integrity.”
Stas Misezhnikov, who served as tourism minister as a member of the Yisrael Beytenu party from 2009 to 2013, started a 15-month jail time period in December 2017 for breach of belief.
He was accused of securing his ministry’s funding for a scholar pageant in 2012 within the southern port metropolis of Eilat, after which asking organizers to make use of his romantic associate in return. Organizers complied, paying her tens of hundreds of shekels throughout that interval. The ministry’s funding got here to some NIS 1 million ($270,000).
His responsible plea and sentence fashioned a part of a plea deal. He was additionally given a six-month suspended sentence and was fined NIS 70,000 (just below $20,000), as a part of the settlement with prosecutors.
In January, he appealed for clemency, below particular guidelines to mark Israel’s 70th anniversary, which give the president, along with the justice minister, the authority to grant pardons to prisoners assembly particular standards.
President Reuven Rivlin speaks on the annual memorial service for the victims of the Altalena Affair, in Tel Aviv, on May 30, 2018. (Marc Israel Sellem/POOL)
In Misezhnikov’s case, the choice to not ease the sentence was taken due to what the president described in a assertion as “serious violations of integrity by a very senior public official who, because of their nature, is unsuitable for inclusion in the special outline formulated by the president and the justice minister in honor of the State of Israel’s 70th year.”
In any occasion, if the parole board agrees, Misezhnikov will likely be launched firstly of September after serving two thirds of his sentence, the president stated.