Environment Ministry recommends indicting Lupolianski

Senior Jerusalem municipal officials reportedly ignored directives to clean up several city sites.

By ETGAR LEFKOVITS
lupolianski 224.88 (photo credit: Ariel Jerozolimski [file])
lupolianski 224.88
(photo credit: Ariel Jerozolimski [file])
The Environment Ministry is recommending pressing charges against Jerusalem Mayor Uri Lupolianski and other senior city officials for ignoring multiple directives to clean public sites in the city. The recommendation comes one year after the ministry's 'green police' opened a criminal investigation against Lupolianski for failing to properly clean the city, in the wake of an amalgamation of waste and garbage at five city sites, which include the city's main Givat Shaul cemetery. The investigation was launched after the mayor ignored five clean-up orders signed by the Environment Ministry's Jerusalem district director Shoni Goldberger. The ministry said Tuesday that the recommendation, first reported Tuesday in Yediot Aharonot, has been forwarded to the Justice Ministry but declined further comment on the highly sensitive issue. The Justice Ministry said that the issue was under investigation. Lupolianski spokesman Gidi Schmerling has said in the past that the city has nearly completed cleaning all the sites in question, even though some of them are public sites. He added that there is therefore no intention to try any municipal officials. Schmerling declined further comment Tuesday. The criminal investigation against the Jerusalem mayor is especially jarring since Lupolianski has put the issue of city sanitation and cleanliness at the forefront of his priorities since he was elected mayor three years ago.