Benizri's brother: Gay elite behind harsh sentence

A conspiracy of top-ranking homosexuals was behind the Supreme Court's decision to aggravate the sentence of former Shas Minister Shlomo Benizri, his brother, Rabbi David Benizri charged on Wednesday.

Earlier Wednesday the Supreme Court granted the State's appeal and decided to send Benizri to four years in prison, instead of the original punishment of 18 months. The former minister was also ordered to pay a fine of NIS 250,000 (about $63,555).

Benizri was convicted by the Jerusalem's District Court in April 2008 on charges of bribery, fraud and breach of trust, committed during his tenure as labor and welfare minister. Both the State and Benizri appealed the original sentence.

"The entire system has tuned Shlomo Benizri into its target," said the brother. "He was a man who wasn't afraid to say what we, as religious Jews, did not dare utter. There are a lot of gays in the courts, the Knesset, the police and the State Prosecution, and I guess many Jews in the law enforcement system did not like to hear the truth."

David Benizri recounted that he used to tell his brother that "those who threaten this clique pay a price. I told him this a long time ago – I said, keep your head down, be careful what you say, but he said that he plans to keep on telling the truth because this was the way of the Torah."

He added, "I prayed to our father in heaven not to punish him, but he is allowed to say no. God almighty told me that he wanted my brother to carry on his mission in prison. He will even make the gays in jail become religious – there are plenty of Torah lessons to give there."