Liberman ally Moshe Lion grilled in Beytenu graft case

Police pressed forward with their corruption investigation into Yisrael Beytenu on Sunday, questioning Jerusalem city councilman Moshe Lion, a senior party member who is a close associate of the party’s leader, Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman.

Lion, an accountant from Givatayim who ran unsuccessfully for Jerusalem mayor last year, has also served as the chairman of Israel Railways and as CEO of the Prime Minister’s Office.

Lion was expected to be given a slot high on the party’s list in the upcoming elections, one that would likely ensure he becomes a minister should Yisrael Beytenu join the government, the Haaretz daily reported.

Investigators from the Lahav 443 anti-corruption unit suspect Lion of facilitating bribes, of which he allegedly took a significant cut for himself. He was arrested on Sunday and released to house arrest after his interrogation. Lion said in a statement that he had cooperated with the police.

In January, Lion paid a NIS 25,000 ($6,400) fine to settle an investigation by customs authorities on suspicion that he had failed to declare a large quantity of clothes purchased abroad. Lion was detained for four hours after passing through customs at Ben Gurion Airport with “hundreds of articles of clothing worth thousands of dollars.”

The bribery interrogation Sunday came after police enlisted a different senior party member as a state’s witness, who provided investigators with recordings and documents showing the illegal transfer of funds by party officials, including the suspect police questioned on Sunday.

More details about the money transfers were revealed Sunday during a hearing in the Rishon Lezion Magistrate’s Court. Deputy Interior Minister Faina Kirshenbaum,  who is a key suspect in the case along with her daughter Ranit, and other central figures in the investigation are said to have taken a fee of around 25% out of each transfer of funds, the Walla news site reported.

During the hearing over extending the remand of several suspects in the case, prosecutors presented a contract allegedly showing a transfer between Municipal Corporations chairman Yitzhak Borba and Tamar Regional Council head Dov Litvinoff. The contract shows NIS 1.6 million of donations to be transferred to the regional council, out of which Borba was to take NIS 400,000.

The remands of both men were extended until Thursday.

The year-long undercover corruption investigation became public last week when police arrested 31 suspects in the affair, which allegedly involves a large system of bribes to Yisrael Beytenu politicians in return for political favors.

Many of the suspects in the affair are high-level members of Yisrael Beytenu, including Kirshenbaum.

Investigators suspect cash was inappropriately transferred to non-government organizations and various other groups. In return, the organizations allegedly made nepotistic appointments, as well as circulating some of the money back to public officials in the form of cash payoffs and benefits.

Earlier Sunday, Liberman demanded that State Prosecutor Shai Nitzan explain why the investigation was being propelled forward during election season, accusing judicial officials of employing a “double standard.”

Speaking before the weekly cabinet meeting, the foreign minister lashed out at what he claimed was an orchestrated assault on his party deliberately timed for the run-up to the vote. “I know the state prosecutor, Shai Nitzan, greatly respect the man,” Liberman said. “I hope to hear satisfactory explanations from him.”

Liberman pointed out that the state prosecution had requested a stay of court proceedings and testimony in a lawsuit filed by Menny Naftali, a former custodian at Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s home, until after March’s Knesset elections. He also lambasted a series of leaks surrounding the case.

“I heard that hundreds more investigations are on the way,” he said. “This is a planned and well-coordinated process, an investigation that is fully coordinated with the election timetable. From what we have seen in the media there will be another wave of arrests and more leaks, the leaks are deliberate and biased. Yes, it raises a lot of questions.”

In a statement last week Yisrael Beytenu said the arrests were part of a pre-election political witch hunt aimed at impeding the party’s campaign ahead of the March 2015 election.

Israel Police Chief Yohanan Danino rejected Yisrael Beytenu’s accusations, denying that the investigation was politically motivated.