Mazuz closes Agrexco probe against MK Avraham due to lack of evidence

By DAN IZENBERG
Attorney-General Menahem Mazuz decided on Wednesday to close the file against Tourism Minister Ruhama Avraham-Balila on the grounds that there was insufficient evidence to press criminal charges against her. Avraham-Balila was under investigation for flying with Agrexco to Belgium and the US in 2004 at the company's expense. After returning to Israel, she arranged a special meeting of the Knesset Interior Committee, to which she did not belong, to consider a move to save the company heavy expenses on security checks for the agricultural cargo it was exporting. Avraham-Balila also did not ask permission from the Knesset Ethics Committee before making the trip. Mazuz wrote that her conduct was "unworthy, improper, in violation of the Knesset ethics rules and tangential to the criminal sphere."