ThyssenKrupp Finds No Corruption in Submarine Deal

YERUSHALAYIM
The corporate headquarters of ThyssenKrupp, Essen, Germany. (Tuxyso)

ThyssenKrupp, the German shipbuilding company named in the Israeli police investigation into procurements of submarines for the navy, said on Tuesday that its own internal probe did not support the allegations of corruption which have been roiling Israeli politics for months.

“Based on the investigative measures we were able to carry out, we found no concrete indications of corruption — neither with regard to submarine projects, nor in connection with the procurement of corvettes,” ThyssenKrupp said in a statement, according to Reuters.

“However, these investigation results are explicitly provisional,” the company stipulated, due to its inability to investigate the matter in Israel and its lack of official investigatory powers.

The police investigation centers on suspicions that ThyssenKrupp’s representative in Israel, Miki Ganor, along with former National Security Council deputy head Avriel Bar-Yosef, paid out bribes in connection with a decision by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to buy three submarines from ThyssenKrupp, despite opposition from the Defense Ministry.

In another development in the submarine affair, former senior Defense Ministry official Amos Gilad defended the purchases authorized by Netanyahu over Israel Radio on
Tuesday.

“The explanations the prime minister provided concerning the purchase of submarines was very convincing, and there was no one in the defense establishment that did not agree with him,” Gilad said.

“The submarines are a strategic weapon. It can be argued if [Israel] needs six or nine. The police are not looking into how many submarines, but details of corruption,” observed Gilad, a former head of the Defense Ministry’s Political-Military Affairs Bureau.

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