January 23, 2003

Mitzna denies taking bribe from contractor

By DAN IZENBERG

Labor Party chairman Amram Mitzna on Thursday denied accepting a bribe from a Haifa building contractor in return for helping him build an extra story on two new apartment buildings while serving as mayor of Haifa.

Police on Wednesday seized documents from the City Engineering Department and the mayor's office in response to a complaint by Likud Central Committee member Aviad Visuli against Mitzna.

Visuli charged that the contractor, A. Levy, had given Mitzna free office space to run his primary campaign for the leadership of the Labor Party, in return for the extra construction.

Mitzna told Israel Radio the extra space built by the contractor amounted "not to an entire floor but to a square meter." It was customary for contractors not to build exactly according to the building permit and that as long as the deviation was not extreme, the Local Planning and Building Authority retroactively approved the adjusted plan, he added.

In the case of A. Levy contractors, said Mitzna, the city had issued a work stoppage order six months before the building was finished and the matter had gone to court. The court ruled that the contractor could finish the building and submit corrected building plans retroactively, and this is what the construction company had done.

Mitzna added that one of his campaign teams had rented a 50 square meter room in the main headquarters of the same construction company. The rent, he added was being paid off over a period of three months.

"If this is a case of accepting a bribe, it was worth $200 to $300 tops," said Mitzna. "The whole affair is nonsense."

Mitzna demanded that police complete their investigation and announce their findings by Sunday. "I am ready to cancel my political schedule and present myself for round-the-clock interrogation," said Mitzna.

"However, I demand that, just as the police were able to be so speedy in the investigation of the leak in the State Attorney's Office, it complete its investigation in three days.

Mitzna vowed that if police find there grounds to suspect he had committed a crime, he "would draw the proper conclusion immediately." He described Visuli as "an extreme right-winger and eccentric, a serial complainer who lodges a complaint against me every week."

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