Israeli PM’s associates listed as suspects in corruption affair

JERUSALEM, Feb. 21 — Israeli police on Tuesday named three close
associates of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as suspects in corruption
offenses involving Bezeq, Israel’s largest telecom company.

The move was the latest in a turmoil surrounding Netanyahu, who is already
a suspect in two separate bribery cases. The long-incumbent prime minister
denies any wrongdoing and charges the accusations are part of a witch-hunt
by the “leftist” media aimed to overpower him. The suspects in the
so-called “4000 case” were identified as Shaul Elovitch, the owner of
Bezeq, Nir Hefetz, Netanyahu’s former spokesman, and Shlomo Filber, who was
the director of the Communication Ministry under Netanyahu. They were all
under arrest, the police and the Israel Securities Authority (ISA,) the
formal watchdog of the stock exchange market, said in a joint statement.
Additionally, the police have arrested Elovitch’s wife, Iris, and his son,
Or, and the CEO of Bezeq, Stella Handler. Handler’s lawyer said she
cooperates with the investigators and denies the allegations.

The arrests were announced on Sunday but the identity of the suspects was
kept under a gag order until Tuesday. The suspects “acted blatantly in
order to disrupt investigation procedures and make it difficult to collect
evidence during the investigation,” the statement said. Elovitch, who
controls through Bezeq the Hebrew-language Walla news site, Filber and
Hefetz are suspected of being involved in deals to give Netanyahu and his
wife, Sara, favorable coverage in Walla, in return for the promotion of
regulations worth hundreds of millions of dollars to Bezeq.On Sunday and
Monday, former Walla senior editors testified in the police that pressures
were imposed on them to publish favorable stories on Netanyahu and his wife
and refrain from negative publicity and unflattering photos, according to
local media. “This is a new investigation in the Bezeq case as a result of
evidence raised in the ISA investigation,” the police-ISA statement read.
“During the investigation suspicions mounted to offenses of integrity,
money laundering laws and the securities laws which were carried out over
time.”

Netanyahu, who was the Communications Minister until 2017, is currently not
a suspect in this affair, according to the police, but local media widely
reported that he is expected to be questioned in the recent days. The new
developments come less than a week after the police said there was
sufficient evidence to indict Netanyahu on charges of corruption.
According to the police, Netanyahu and his family received goods, including
jewelry, cigars, and Champaign, worth about one million shekels (282,800
U.S. dollars) from Israeli businessman and Hollywood tycoon, Milchan and
the Australian businessman, James Packer. The bribe in this affair, dubbed
by the police “case 1000,” was accepted between 2007 and 2016. In return
for the goods, Netanyahu allegedly helped Milchan to protect his
investments in the Israeli media, including Channel 10 TV. In another case,
dubbed “case 2000,” Netanyahu allegedly received bribes from Arnon Mozes,
the publisher of Yedioth Aharonoth, one of Israel’s largest newspapers in
return for positive coverage in Yediot Aharonot. – XINHUA