President Reuven Rivlin has responded favorably to a plea for clemency by real estate developer and Holocaust survivor Shaul Lagziel, who was convicted on charges of bribery in the concurrent case of former Ramat Gan mayor Zvi Bar, who in 2015 was convicted on several counts of corruption.
Lagziel, 81, suffers from acute ill health and prison authorities have agreed that his condition will deteriorate to a life-threatening degree if he remains incarcerated for much longer.
On the recommendation of Justice Minister Ayelet, Rivlin reduced Lagziel’s nine-month sentence behind bars to six months of community service, plus a fine of NIS 250,000.
Supreme Court Justice Noam Sohlberg noted the fragile state of Lagziel’s health when he was sentenced and said that if his condition worsened, he was at liberty to ask to be released from prison. In writing his judgment, Sohlberg emphasized that sick elderly people are not sent to prison simply to make their lives more difficult, and that there is room to take age and health into consideration when someone is convicted. “We do not want elderly convicts to die within the prison walls,” he wrote.