“Surkis met with commission agent Icaro Silva, who is in charge of the investigation. Upon leaving police headquarters, the consul-general refused comment on the photos. Instead he criticized police for not sending a copy of the charges to the consulate, nor to the Department of State of Israel.
“‘We have not received official notification of the charges from Brazilian authorities regarding this case,’ said Surkis. Detective Silva replied that he had no obligation to provide such information. ‘They did not ask for any information,’ he added. The consul-general also criticized the Brazilian press for divulging what he called ‘incorrect information.'”
A search of Scher’s apartment confirmed that photographs found at Schteinberg’s residence had been taken in the vice-consul’s luxury penthouse. “We confirmed that the pornographic pictures were taken next to the consul’s pool and on his deck,” said Roberto Costa, a chief investigator for the civil police. “We are going to charge him with exploiting minors and prostituting them.”
After Brazilian authorities notified the Israeli embassy of plans to revoke Scher’s diplomatic immunity, he fled. According to the Brazilian federal police, Scher departed at 12:57 in the morning for Israel by way of Buenos Aries, Argentina. The Brazilian daily Oglobo reported that Brazilian judge Siro Darlan ruled that Scher must be returned to Brazil. Brazilian authorities said they have no doubt that Scher was involved in illegal activities, and stated that he will be jailed if he is returned. According to Oglobo, Jewish Congregation of Brazil president Rabbi Nilton Bonder decried Scher’s departure from Brazil, and said that Schteinberg and Scher should not be considered representatives of the Jewish community there.
Agent Icaro Silva of the Brazilian Police Commission (Copacabana) said that Scher is considered a fugitive wanted for creating child pornography. His escape resulted in a request to Interpol that Scher be arrested if he ever leaves Israel and that the Brazilian government be notified of any developments in this case.
Prior to Scher’s flight, Mr. Schteinberg confirmed that he had assisted in taking nude photographs in the consul’s apartment, and that he had sexual relations with a girl, age 11, who was discovered to be living with him at the time of his arrest. Agent Silva said the pre-teen had been living with Schteinberg for almost a year, “as had been arranged by Scher.” However, the sex of the child remains unclear because another Brazilian newspaper Hora do Povo described the 11-year-old as a “street boy who has been placed in the custody of the department of child protection.”
Silva told reporters that nine complete pornographic Web sites were found on the hard drive of Schteinberg’s computer, and all were in Hebrew, the language that Schteinberg taught. “We want to determine the names of the other girls who appear in those photos,” said the commission agent. He added that the Web sites confirm that Schteinberg was running an Internet service that brought Israeli tourists to Brazil to have sex with the children.
Silva also connected Scher to another notorious child pornographer, a retired professor by the name of Ablio Nogueira de Faria, age 78, who was in jail for producing child pornography. A document titled “An Investigation of Arie Scher,” written by an unnamed American, was found in the retiree’s home which contained descriptions of criminal acts by Scher. “We want to know if some connection between the cases exists, therefore Nogueira will be interrogated again,” Silva told reporters.
Israel and Brazil do not have an extradition treaty but the Brazilian Government asked the Israeli Government to return Scher. Brazil’s Ministry of Foreign Relations delivered a formal request to Israel’s Foreign Ministry stating that Rio de Janeiro’s 31st criminal precinct had a criminal case pending against the Jew.
The request was sent to Brazil’s embassy in Tel Aviv on October 2001 and later forwarded to the Israeli Foreign Ministry. Ma’ariv reported that Israel refused to extradite Scher and instead conducted its own investigation. They found that Scher had merely “behaved inappropriately for a diplomat.” And banned him from foreign diplomatic missions for five years.
A spokesman for the Israeli Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem, Mark Regev, confirmed the disciplinary hearing upon Scher’s return from Brazil five years ago. “He was a young and single man at the time. Now he is married and he’s six years older and there is no reason why he shouldn’t make an excellent diplomatic appointment in Australia,” Regev told the Herald on Friday.
Other Israeli sources told the Sydney Morning Herald that because of the public nature of the allegations, the Scher inquiry was quietly held at the highest level of the country’s Civil Service Commission. They determined that “while some of his behavior was unbecoming, there was nothing close to criminal.”
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