After a bombshell report exposing a cover-up on the part of the police and state prosecutors, the prime minister called for an investigation.
By David Isaac, World Israel News
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has called for an independent investigation into the State Prosecutor’s Office and the police in the wake of revelations that they had covered up damaging information in order not to give ammunition to Netanyahu against them.
He made his call in the wake of a bombshell Monday report by Israel’s Channel 12 that former State Prosecutor Shai Nitzan covered up first an illicit romance, and second, false claims by Israel’s police chief that a Bedouin man shot by officers was a terrorist.
Nitzan’s motivations for covering up the malfeasance was to avoid jeopardizing corruption cases being investigated against the prime minister, based on emails obtained by Channel 12.
In the case of the illicit romance, one of the investigators in a case against Sara Netanyahu, the prime minister’s wife, was conducting an affair with Judy Mozes. She is the sister of Arnon Mozes, publisher of Yediot Ahronot, who is a co-defendant together with the prime minister in Case 2000.
The investigator would have access to files pertaining to that case while romancing Arnon Mozes’ sister.
Coalition Chairman and Likud MK Miki Zohar asked Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit on Tuesday to drop the charges in Case 2000 as a result of the Channel 12 revelations.
However, Justice Minister Avi Nissenkorn of the Blue and White party was unfazed by the report, describing allegations that the cases were “cobbled together” to bring down Netanyahu as “ridiculous conspiracy theories.”
Netanyahu has maintained throughout that the police and state prosecutor were working together to drive him from office. On May 25, at the start of his trial, he said, “Elements in the police and State Attorney’s Office banded together with left-wing journalists… to fabricate baseless cases against me.”
“The goal is to oust a strong right-wing prime minister and to banish the right-wing camp from leadership of the country for many years,” Netanyahu said.