Nailing Netanyahu: Storm in Knesset as justice minister reveals investigators’ dirty tricks

Ohana revealed controversial details of the investigation tactics used to pressure a key witness against the prime minister.

By World Israel News Staff

Justice Minister Amir Ohana created a storm in the Knesset on Wednesday when he mounted the podium and proceeded to expose details relating to the investigation of a key witness in a corruption case against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Questions had already been raised about the controversial methods that were used to turn the witness, Nir Hefetz, a former Netanyahu confidante, into a state witness for the prosecution.

Hefetz is considered the key witness in Case 4000, considered the most serious of three corruption cases facing  Netanyahu. Netanyahu is accused of helping Shaul Elovitch, the owner of communications giant Bezeq, to advance his business interests in exchange for favorable media coverage on an Elovitch-owned website.

Ohana, who invoked his immunity as a Knesset member to reveal details of the investigation, appeared to suggest that the investigators pressured Hefetz by threatening to expose personal details of his life.

“They bring in a young woman who has nothing to do with the prime minister’s investigation and ask her a series of intrusive and penetrating questions on the nature of the relationship between the witness and herself,” Ohana said.

“And after they squeeze her like a lemon for all the information, and I remind – she isn’t suspected of a thing – they arrange a meeting [between the two] in the hallway and say to him, ‘Nir, we know everything. We will drop a bomb on your family,” he said.

“He’s then taken out with one of the investigators, they leave for an undocumented period of time – and we don’t know what went on in that conversation – and then he comes back and gives a full version, tailor-made, that perfectly matches the evidence the police have,” Ohana said.

Reaction to Ohana’s remarks generally focused on the fact that he used his Knesset immunity to violate a gag order and reveal details of the investigation.

Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit and State Prosecutor Shai Nitzan condemned him, calling his comments “extremely grave and a distortion of reality.”

Amir OhanaShai Nitzan