Report: Decision on Netanyahu indictment by early 2019
Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit is expected to make a decision on whether to indict Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu during the first quarter of 2019 after Israel Police concluded their investigation into three corruption cases against him, Hadashot TV news station reported Tuesday.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Photo by Hillel Maeir/TPS on 12 August, 2018
The report quoted a senior source in the State Prosecutor’s Office as saying that police have gathered all of the evidence they need in cases 1000, 2000 and 4000, and that their recommendations would soon be finalized.
In February, Police recommended that Netanyahu be indicted in cases 1,000 and 2,000.
On Wednesday morning, responding to the report, Fellow Likud member and Coalition Chairman David Amsalem told Army Radio that the media and police have been “brainwashing the public for 3 years,” adding that “the Prime Minister’s investigators need to be investigated, and not the other way around.”
In case 1000, Netanyahu has admitted to accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of “gifts” from wealthy benefactors, most notably expensive cigars and champagne provided by the billionaire Israeli-born Hollywood producer Arnon Milchan. The prime minister says the gifts were nothing more than gifts between friends and insists there was no “give and take” associated with them.
In case 2000, Netanyahu is suspected of meeting several times with Arnon (Noni) Mozes, publisher of the Hebrew-language Yedioth Aharonoth newspaper and Ynet news website to discuss a deal in which Netanyahu would promote legislation to limit the circulation of Israel Hayom, a freesheet that was launched in July, 2007 by long-time Netanyahu supporter and benefactor Sheldon Adelson, in exchange for positive coverage.
The Case 4000 investigation involves suspicions that persons close to Netanyahu, at the time of the allegations serving as communications minister in addition to being prime minister, agreed to promote Bezeq’s economic interests in exchange for favorable coverage by Walla!News, both of which were controlled at the time by now fallen tycoon Shaul Elovitch.
In March Nir Hefetz, a former media adviser to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu signed an agreement to become a state’s witness in Case 4000.
Why is there constant procrastination in the Israel judicial system?