The Jerusalem District Attorney's Office has filed a complaint against Avi Hovav, deputy director of the Jerusalem region at MDA, for offenses of accepting bribes, fraud and breach of trust, receiving something by fraud in concert, theft, an act that may spread a disease under aggravated circumstances, destruction of evidence and obstruction of justice.
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This is as part of the hearing process to which he received a summons about a week ago.
The indictment details a series of alleged offenses committed by the suspect since the outbreak of the coronavirus in Israel, in which he exploited his position and position at MDA for the purpose of making a financial profit.
According to the indictment, during the first and second waves, the suspect made a decision to create a system for conducting private samples for the coronavirus in exchange for receiving payment that would be transferred to his pocket, without the consent or approval of his MDA sources.
The private tests were ordered by the subjects for various reasons, but they allowed the subjects to receive a test, even though they did not meet the criteria for receiving it, within a short period of time, when MDA representatives arrived at them. In some cases, the test results were not reported to the Ministry of Health, and therefore the subjects were not subject to the restrictions resulting from a positive result.
In order to promote this system of private tests for a fee, the suspect worked through MDA volunteers, with whom he shared the profits they received from performing the samples. The suspect, through those volunteers, entered the private tests he conducted into the 'drive-in' system so that they would be transferred to the laboratories working with MDA.
At the same time, some of the tests were transferred to a laboratory in Ramallah - a laboratory that is not approved by the Ministry of Health - while the suspect falsely presented to laboratory officials that this was a collaborative project with an airline, and as part of the project, a test for the coronavirus would be included as part of the price of the flight ticket that a person purchases.
The suspect also said that he could send many samples to the laboratory in Ramallah for testing, and it was agreed that the payment to be sent to the laboratory for each sample would be 180 shekels.
The suspect acted with the laboratory in Ramallah knowing, or alternatively turning a blind eye, that the laboratory is not approved by the Ministry of Health to perform tests for the coronavirus, and knowing that transferring these private tests to this laboratory bypasses the reporting mechanism to the Ministry of Health, and therefore the test subject is not obligated to undergo the required isolation and epidemiological investigation.
In another case, the suspect, along with another MDA volunteer, charged a family from abroad an excessive price for an ambulance escort for the burial of a deceased family member, and split the profits.
Upon publication of the affair in the media, the suspect formatted his mobile phone, which contained correspondence between him and the volunteers, in order to obscure his involvement in the affair in a way that made it impossible to reconstruct and trace his actions.
In light of the suspicions mentioned above, the police and the prosecutor's office requested that the suspect be removed from his senior position at MDA until the end of the hearing proceedings.
This request was rejected by the Magistrate's Court and then by a district appeal, which determined that a restrictive condition prohibiting him from engaging in matters related to the coronavirus within the scope of his duties could be sufficient.
The case was investigated by the Jerusalem Police Department.
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