Labor MK Gilad Kariv denounced United Torah Judaism MK and former health minister and housing minister Ya’acov Litzman as a “pedophile defender” in an acrimonious shouting match in the Knesset plenum Tuesday evening.
Most of what both MKs shouted at each other is indecipherable due to the volume of the yelling, but Kariv can at one point be heard shouting “Pedophile defender, you disgrace!” while Litzman told him to “shut up.”
In May, Attorney-General Avichai Mandelblit said Litzman would be indicted, pending a personal hearing, on charges of witness tampering, fraud and breach of trust in connection with the case against Malka Leifer, who is wanted for alleged sexual abuse and rape of pupils in the ultra-Orthodox school where she taught in Melbourne, Australia.
Leifer, who is on trial for 74 counts of rape and sexual abuse in Australia, took refuge in Israel for over a decade and avoided extradition until this year by claiming to be mentally unfit for extradition.
Litzman is accused of having pressured state psychiatrists under his authority as health minister into issuing false medical opinions to the Jerusalem District Court stating that Leifer, a hassidic woman whose husband is the head of a small hassidic community, was mentally unfit for trial, in order to prevent her from being extradited.
Litzman denies the charges.
The shouting match between Kariv and Litzman took place on the benches of the Knesset plenum during the vote Tuesday night on the government’s amendment to the Basic Law: The Government designed to make official the rotation agreement between Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and Alternative Prime Minister Yair Lapid.