High court justice owns apartment in Holyland project

Ha'aretz
Supreme Court Justice Edna Arbel owns an apartment in the Holyland project in Jerusalem, the subject of a spreading bribery investigation. Arbel, who bought the apartment not long after sales started in 2002, divides her time between Jerusalem and her home in Kiryat Ono.

She was introduced to the project in November 1996, three years before it was approved by the planning commission. She was serving as state prosecutor at the time, and in that capacity was involved in an investigation of senior tax authority officials who were suspected of attempting to head off an inquiry conducted by the authority's then internal auditor, Yael Shavit, into the tax bill set for the project's developers.

Shavit discovered that the land allocated for the Holyland project was given an appraisal of $12 million for tax purposes. However, this appraisal was actually made by the project's owners and was accepted at face value by the income tax division. There were suspicions that the amount was not correct, and gave the developers tens of millions of shekels in undeserved profits.

Toward the end of 1996, Arbel decided to open a criminal investigation against Doron Levy, the income tax commissioner at the time, and other senior tax officials. A few months later, the state appraiser valued the land at about $100 million. The police investigation lasted a year, but the case against Levy was ultimately closed.....


The courts spokeswoman said: "Justice Arbel does not remember the details of the matter." Full story