The official investigation into the fatal gas explosion in the Gilo neighborhood of Yerushalayim that claimed four lives cleared the gas company technician. Police have however been probing other directions as well, moving ahead with indictments against a number of people in the case.

An indictment was filed against unauthorized gas installation technicians on Thursday morning in the Hadera Magistrate Court, erev Rosh Chodesh Adar 1 5774 charging them with endangering the public welfare. The indictment lists five defendants and police of the elite 433 Investigations Unit requested the court remand all five to house arrest pending the outcome of the trial. The prosecutor fears if they are permitted to move about freely they will interfere with the legal proceedings.

The five face charges including unlicensed dealings with the gas that led to harm to life and property. This is the result of investigators uncovering considerable unauthorized gas installation work in the building.

The defendants are charged with recklessness and negligence, acting jointly and fraudulently. One defendant, from Herzliya, was employed in a private gas company in 2012-2013 which provided gas installation to larger firms. The other four defendants, including two brothers from Tiveria face similar charges.

They presented themselves as licensed gas technicians qualified to carry out the work and they presented forged documents to attest to their certification, duping the large gas company which hired them. They checked the integrity of gas systems in thousands of households throughout the country, including a Sharon region kindergarten. They earned hundreds of thousands of shekels conducting fraudulent inspections.

The powerful blast that rocked Shabtai Hanegbi Street in Gilo led to the deaths of four people, a couple and their infant son and a 40-year-old woman who died in an intensive care unit of her massive injuries.

(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)