Legal Expert: Netanyahu’s Indictment Inserts Law Enforcement Officials Into Political Arena

A legal expert slammed Attorney General Avicahi Mandelblit’s decision to charge Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu with bribery and breach of trust in three alleged corruption cases during the elections period, saying it was a blatant intrusion of law enforcement into the political arena.

Professor Avi Bell, a Senior Fellow at the non-partisan Jerusalem-based Kohelet Policy Forum, Professor of Law at Bar Ilan University and the University of San Diego, and a Visiting Fellow at Harvard Law School’s Project on the Foundations of Private Law, stated that Mandelblit’s announcement “inserts law enforcement officials into the political arena in an unprecedented way, and on a very shaky legal foundation.”

He further stated that Mandelblit’s actions could hinder Israel’s democracy.

“If the legal theories that the Attorney General is introducing against Netanyahu become general law, a considerable part of the democratic life of Israel will have to pass through police interrogation rooms. If they remain restricted to Netanyahu, the partisanship will permanently damage public trust in the Israeli legal system,” he warned.

Mandelblit announced Thursday that he will charge Netanyahu in three corruption cases, pending a hearing, which is slated to take place only after the elections.

Netanyahu has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing and calls the allegations a witch hunt by a “hostile media” against him and his family and an attempt by left-wing officials to influence the outcome of the elections.