Netanyahu: Police Leaks on My Interrogations ‘Far From Reality’

YERUSHALAYIM
Police investigators arrive at the entrance to the prime minister’s residence in Yerushalayim on Thursday as Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu was interrogated again. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on Motzoei Shabbos denied that he had failed to adequately respond to police questions in his most recent interrogation last Thursday. Netanyahu was questioned for several hours in Case 1000, in which Netanyahu was accused of accepting extravagant gifts from millionaire Arnon Milchin, and Case 2000, in which the prime minister allegedly leaned on the publishers of Yisrael Hayom to limit distribution of their free newspaper in order to benefit from better coverage in rival newspaper Yediot Acharonot.

A report on Channel Two News on Motzoei Shabbos quoted police officials as saying that Netanyahu’s answers to questions on the cases “did not satisfy their criteria and deflect the accusations against him. If a substantial change does not take place police will have no choice but to recommend that the prime minister be indicted in both cases.”

Meanwhile, police said there had been “significant progress” in its investigation of Case 3000, an investigation into a bribery scandal surrounding Israel’s purchase of submarines from Germany. Netanyahu has not been considered a suspect in this case until now, and his status as a non-suspect has not changed, even after the questioning this week of Netanyahu associates David Shimron and Yitzchak Molcho.

Netanyahu’s office said in a statement that “any connection between the truth and the slanted leaks from police are coincidental. The prime minister answered all questions confidently and honestly. Once again he reiterates that ‘there will be nothing because there is nothing’ in any of these investigations.”

Meanwhile, in a separate statement, the Netanyahu family said that it denied allegations made in a lengthy interview Motzoei Shabbos by Shira Raban, a former worker in the prime minister’s residence who accused Sarah Netanyahu of mistreating and abusing her. Speaking on behalf of the Netanyahus, their attorney Yossi Cohen said that “after they lost badly in labor court, Shira Raban and her attorneys are continuing their hopeless campaign using recycled lies that have already been disproven to extort money in an illicit manner.”

In the interview, Raban, who was a worker in the prime minister’s household for about a month, said that she had been subject to constant abuse and yelling from Mrs. Netanyahu. “She screamed and yelled at me, gesticulating and waving her hands around. She clapped her hands in anger, maybe out of nervousness. All the while she was muttering to herself, ‘What am I going to do with her?’” The “torture,” as Raban put it, went on daily for the month that she was employed at the prime minister’s house, after which she quit because “I couldn’t take it anymore.”

In response, Cohen said that the interview was “another gambit to extort a quarter of a million shekels on less than a month’s worth of work, in which Raban worked with Mrs. Netanyahu for just a few hours. The Labor Court has already said that the complaints in the interview are irrelevant. That the interview was broadcast just a day before the court is expected to rule on dismissing the case altogether is not coincidental, and this is an attempt to sway the court via the media. We are positive that the truth will prevail.”

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