Netanyahu Lawyers: State Prosecutors “Invented a Crime”

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s defense attorneys on Sunday sought to have the criminal charges against him dropped due to alleged improper investigative methods.

“The investigation materials reveal serious actions [by law enforcement officials] that require the indictment to be canceled — they did not investigate a crime, they invented a crime,” his lawyers alleged in a 200-page statement to the Yerushalayim District Court.

The lawyers cited “dozens of examples of improper investigative methods, [including] intimidating witnesses, using their personal lives to interrogate them, silencing witnesses, selective enforcement, ignoring evidence favoring [Netanyahu], and additional irregular actions.”

“This is an unprecedented event,” they asserted, and asked the court to void the charges of bribery, fraud and breach of trust against Netanyahu in three cases.

Netanyahu’s office, in a statement, charged that “illegal actions, on an unprecedented level,” were taken during the investigation.

The state prosecutors appeared unfazed by the allegations. In a statement, they said the allegations were familiar, many of them having been made in the past. They said the would respond to them in court.