Israel's Supreme Court on Wednesday ordered former cabinet minister and founder of the powerful Orthodox Shas party Arieh Deri to start serving a three-year jail term for corruption from September 3rd.
Supreme Court president Aharon Barak, who had earlier postponed Deri's imprisonment from August 13th, rejected his appeal and ruled that any further delay was unjustifiable.
Deri stepped down as party leader in June after being found guilty of accepting bribes worth 95,000 dollars, along with fraud and abuse of power while he was a senior official and then minister of interior from 1985 to 1990.
Deri, whose supporters branded the charges against him a conspiracy by the secular establishment, will be Israel's second former cabinet minister to wind up in jail.
Shas MP Eli Suissa said Barak had "twisted the knife that was impaled in the back of Arieh Deri" and described his ruling as a "jihad" or holy war against Orthodox Jews.
The decision was another sign of the "discrimination" against the generally underprivileged Sephardic community of Jews of Spanish or Middle Eastern origin since the creation of the state of Israel in 1948, Suissa told Israel radio.
Shas, which is Israel's third largest party with 17 seats in parliament, dealt a crushing blow to Prime Minister Ehud Barak in July when it quit his coalition in protest at his peace policies - OCCUPIED JERUSALEM (AFP)
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