Despite his doctors' advice: Harav Pinto returned to Israel

Final: After half a year of various delays, and despite the recommendations of his doctors, Rabbi Yoshiahu Pinto decided to appear before the court in Tel Aviv, for the reading of the indictment against him in the "Rabbi and Commander" affair, as confirmed by sources close to the rabbi.
The indictment against the Rabbi was given on 22nd Elul last year, when the prosecution reached a plea bargain with the Rabbi's lawyers. According to the bargain the prosecutor's office should ask for up to a year in jail.

Since then the arraignment against the Rabbi has delayed. First, the Movement for Quality of Government appealed against the arrangement. So too the Ometz movement appealed and asked to investigate the head of the National Fraud Squad Commander Efi Bracha. Later, at the request of the rabbi's attorneys and the consent of the prosecution, the hearing was deferred several times.

In a hearing on 28th Adar, the rabbi's attorneys, attorney Eyal Rosovsky, Zvi Klang and Bat-Chen Lipsky, argued that the Rabbi is undergoing medical treatments and surgeries, and can not come to Israel for the hearing. The prosecution rejected the documents submitted to it and offered to appoint a physician whose report could serve as the basis of the decision.

The Prosecutor's Office relied on the expert report of Dr. Menachem Laufer from Tel Hashomer hospital, who determined that despite the treatments, "There is no clinical prevention for a flight and arrival from New York to Israel on schedule".

Judge Dr. Oded Mudrick, vice president of the Court, adopted the opinion and concluded: "I can determine that a proper infrastructure on which to base the request that the proceedings be delayed, was laid before me," and therefore declared that the Rabbi must report.

Behadrey Haredim learned that after the hearing, Rabbi Pinto convened his doctors, and asked to hear their opinion again. They recommended he doe not go, yet he decided to respect the court's decision and to attend the hearing to be held in two days (Tuesday) in the Tel Aviv court.

'בחדרי' גם ברשתות החברתיות - הצטרפו!