The suspicion is that the money was given to Benizri about two years ago, allegedly in the expectation that as minister of labor and welfare, he would give Sela information from the Employment Service about a tender for the import of thousands of foreign workers.

In the meantime, Sela found himself in financial and personal trouble and decided to demand that Benizri return the money. Sela made it clear to Benizri that if he did not get the money, he would tell the police about the alleged bribery arrangement.

Benizri replied that he was not prepared to be blackmailed. According to one version, Benizri threatened Sela that he would complain about him to the police. If true, this was his main error, pushing Sela to tell everything to the investigators and to turn state witness. He did first torture himself, as a newly religious person, for fear of violating the prohibition against turning another Jew in to the authorities.

The investigators showed Sela evidence, some of it from wiretaps, and made it clear to him that his situation was bad, while Benizri could still come out unscathed from this affair, as have many public figures in recent years when charges were pressed against those who gave bribes and not those who accepted them. This argument and the way Benizri turned his back on him led Sela to relate all his connections with the former minister and the court of his patron, Rabbi Reuven Elbaz. For some reason, Sela's attorney, Eli Katz, insisted yesterday on denying that his client had agreed to turn state witness, even though it was clear that within a few hours the truth would become known.

Following Sela's testimony, the police made a series of arrests on Sunday. Benizri was called in for questioning that lasted eight hours, and Rabbi Elbaz, his daughter Michal Malka and two of Benizri's former aides, Yitzhak Avidani and Amos Danieli, were also arrested. Upon the completion of the investigation, the police are expected to recommend that Benizri be indicted.

It is suspected that for many years Moshe Sela and his wife Edna provided Benizri with various favors and cash, and that hundreds of thousands of shekels of the alleged bribe money were transferred to Rabbi Elbaz's court.