AG set to close probe into Netanyahu’s lucrative sale of stock in cousin’s firm

Reports say Mandelblit believes there is insufficient evidence regarding claims PM broke the law in sale of shares to Nathan Milikowsky

By ToI Staff 5 October 2020, 11:54 pm

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Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at a school in Jerusalem, ahead of the opening of the school year, August 25, 2020. (Marc Israel Sellem/Pool/AFP)

Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit is reportedly expected to refrain from ordering a formal investigation into Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over allegations that he illicitly profited from selling shares in a company to his cousin Nathan Milikowsky.

The imminent closing of the probe into the matter was due to a lack of evidence, Channel 13 and the Kan public broadcaster reported.

There was no official comment on the matter by the attorney general’s office.

Mandelblit’s office had been looking into the allegations for nearly a year and a half, after TV reports claimed Netanyahu made a return of over 700 percent on stocks he held in SeaDrift.

File: Nathan Milikowsky in 2013, in San Francisco (Drew Altizer Photography)

Seadrift produces needle coke used for manufacturing graphite electrodes, and was acquired by a conglomerate in the same field, GrafTech International, a longtime supplier of Germany’s ThyssenKrupp shipbuilding company.

Thysennkrupp is at the center of another corruption probe involving the premier’s associates.

Netanyahu purchased the shares in Texas-based SeaDrift Coke in 2007 for $400,000, before selling them in 2010 for $4.3 million — an over sevenfold increase, Channel 12 news reported.

Netanyahu has insisted that he received no favors from his cousin in the affair.

According to a Channel 13 report, prosecutors suspected Netanyahu misled the State Comptroller’s Office on his financial assets. The report said Netanyahu did not disclose his past holdings in SeaDrift, which he had acquired when he was not prime minister but sold after entering the post.

ThyssenKrupp stands at the center of the high-profile Case 3000, which has snared several close associates of Netanyahu, but not the premier himself, on suspicion that they received bribes as part of a massive graft scheme in the multi-billion-shekel state purchase of naval vessels and submarines from the German shipbuilder.

Netanyahu’s political opponents have accused the premier of a possible conflict of interest in the ThyssenKrupp affair, and have alleged he may have benefited financially from it.

Netanyahu’s ruling Likud party suggested the reports were politically motivated.