Oz Unit traces Barak's illegal maid

Interior Ministry inspectors succeed where law enforcement authorities failed, manage to track down Virginia, foreign worker employed at defense minister's house

Yael Branovsky |Last update: 11.01.10 , 00:50

Inspectors of the Interior Ministry's Oz Unit managed to track down the foreign worker who was employed at the house of Defense Minister Ehud Barak. The announcement came Sunday after the Justice Ministry closed the case seeing as the maid could not be found.

The maid, Virginia, was released from custody Sunday night after being questioned by the Oz Unit for several hours. "You found me, well done!" she told the inspector who found her on the street, alongside her husband and small son.

Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein recently decided to reopen the case against Barak's wife, Nili Priell, after journalist Carmela Menashe managed to trace Virginia. He rejected Priell's request to pay a fine and said the circumstance of the case warrant an indictment.

The Immigration and Population Authority decided to search for the maid after Weinstein decided to reopen the case.

In a letter to Priell, the attorney general said there was no sufficient evidence as of yet in the case, and noted that Priell would therefore likely be summoned for questioning soon.

"This was allegedly a case of a foreign worker who had a work permit for the nursing field and was employed for a relatively long time in housekeeping," he said. "Your willingness to pay a fine therefore cannot put an end to the affair."