Netanyahu's legal woes grow as police seek new bribery charges

[webfact]

Netanyahu's legal woes grow as police seek new bribery charges

By Maayan Lubell

 

FILE PHOTO: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attends the weekly cabinet meeting in Jerusalem November 25, 2018. REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun/File Photo

 

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israeli police on Sunday said they had found enough evidence for bribery and fraud charges to be brought against Benjamin Netanyahu and his wife in a third corruption case against the Israeli prime minister.

 

Authorities allege Netanyahu awarded regulatory favours to Israel's leading telecommunications company, Bezeq Telecom Israel <BEZQ.TA>, in return for more positive coverage of him and his wife on a news website, Walla, owned by the company.

 

Netanyahu has long denied wrongdoing. In a speech to his Likud party in Tel Aviv to celebrate the start of the Jewish festival of Hanukka, he accused the police of instigating what he described as a "tainted process" against him and his wife.

 

Now in his fourth term, Netanyahu dominates Israeli politics. Yet he is politically unusually vulnerable as his right-wing coalition's majority has shrunk to a precarious single seat.

 

"It's clear for everybody to see the transparent, petty timing of the publication of the pre-determined recommendations, the deliberate leaks, the tainted process and the false allegations about me and my wife," Netanyahu said.

 

"(The investigation) has been a match-fix. The recommendations aren't surprising and the timing isn't surprising."

 

The final decision on whether to indict rests with the attorney-general, who is still weighing whether to charge Netanyahu in the other two cases.

 

These relate to allegations that Netanyahu accepted gifts from businessmen and that he tried to strike a deal with another media mogul for better coverage in return for curbs on a competing newspaper.

 

Most of Netanyahu's coalition partners have said they will wait for a decision by the attorney-general before deciding how to proceed.

 

Some analysts have said Netanyahu could put pressure on the attorney-general to think twice before indicting him by calling a snap election to seek a stronger popular mandate. The next election is not due until November 2019.

 

Netanyahu has said he wants to serve out his term, but politicians close to him say that his precarious parliamentary situation means an early election is likely.

 

In a joint statement with the Israel Securities Authority, police said they also found sufficient evidence to charge Shaul Elovitch, a family friend of Netanyahu, with bribery.

 

At the time, Elovitch was Bezeq's chairman and controlling shareholder. The statement said there was also evidence to charge Bezeq's then-CEO Stella Handler with fraud.

 

Elovitch and Handler have denied wrongdoing. They were both briefly detained earlier this year and have resigned from Bezeq.

 

The police said the main suspicion was that Netanyahu "acted out of a conflict of interest by intervening and making regulatory decisions that favour Shaul Elovitch and Bezeq".

 

It alleged that Netanyahu had sought to interfere with the content of Bezeq's Walla website "in a way that would benefit him".

 

Netanyahu, who also served as communications minister from 2015-2017, said in his speech that he had neither received anything from Elovitch, not given him anything.

 

The police also recommended that Netanyahu and his wife be charged with fraud and breach of trust.

 

(Additional reporting by Stephen Farrell, Steven Scheer, Ari Rabinovitch and Ori Lewis; Editing by Kevin Liffey)

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2018-12-03

 

[DaddyWarbucks]

Step down Bibi. You've been in power long enough.

You haven't improved Israel's international reputation, you've made it worse.

[Proboscis]

The first time, well everyone makes mistakes. The second time, well maybe he is a bit arrogant and a slow learner. But the third time? Arrest him and put him on trial. Needless to say, he loses his position as PM.

 

In most states, no matter how good the rule of law is, the power of high office is such that there is an extreme reluctance to investigate incumbents or to include them in investigations "for the good of the country." When you see at least three cases bubble to the surface, that is an indicator that all is not good in that administration - indeed, it could be an indicator that there is an awful lot more there than we know about.

 

Time that the State of Israel got its own Mueller special prosecutor investigation!

Edited December 3, 2018 by Proboscis
spelling

[metisdead]

An off topic trolling post has been removed as well as a reply. 

[bristolboy]

What's really scary is that I wouldn't put it past the Israelis to come up with a replacement who's even worse.

[Nilats]

Well I guess this shows that at least Israel is an actual Democracy - it's the only country I know where high ranking government officials are sent to prison on regular basis if they do something wrong... For some reason we practically never see that in any of Western Democracies ????

 

It doesn't really matter that much... most politics of Israel are defined by the continuous tense security situation - but replacing government officials like this is actually usual business. When it comes to Bibi, I kind of definitely more like him than hate him... but if it's time for him to go, then maybe it is, I guess we'll just have to wait and see ????