Sefardic Chief Rabbi Shlomo Amar's son has admitted to kidnapping and assult charges. His mother, Rabbi Amar's wife, has admitted to knowing about the abduction and attack as it was happening and then doing nothing to stop it. Ha'aretz reports:
Meir Amar, the son of Sephardi Chief Rabbi Shlomo Amar, on Wednesday admitted under a plea bargain to charges of abducting his teenage sister's 17-year-old suitor. In the deal between Amar's attorneys and the State Prosecution, 31-year-old Amar also admitted to charges of abduction, extortion, physically abusing a minor and illegal incarceration.…
Under the deal, Amar will also pay the complainant NIS 35,000, and the Chief Rabbi's family has promised to help the boy's absorption in a yeshiva, a difficult task since he had decided to turn to the police.…
As part of the same bargain deal, the rabbi's wife, Mazal, retracted her previous denials and admitted on Wednesday that she knew of the abduction and did not report it to police. She will, nevertheless, not be convicted.
Several months ago, Rabbi Amar visited the Former Soviet Union. Traveling with Lev Leviev, the Chabad-backer and oilgarch who pays for most of Chabad's activities in Russia, and Berel Lazar, Chabad's "chief rabbi" of Russia, Rabbi Amar was scheduled to visit a non-Chabad yeshiva. He did not show up. Staff and students waited in assembly for hours as they were assured by the Chief Rabbi's staff that he would be arriving shortly. He never did. He also never explained his absence or apologized, a source close to the yeshiva told FailedMesiah.com.