Court orders key submarine witness Miki Ganor released to house arrest

A court on Tuesday granted a police request to allow state’s witness Miki Ganor to return home, after he was arrested following an attempt to recant his testimony in a major bribery scandal.

Ganor, the prosecution’s key witness in the Case 3000 submarine acquisitions corruption investigation, will be under house arrest for the next 15 days, according to Hebrew media reports.

Police inspector Or Rubin, in making the request, cited Ganor’s health condition and said “the investigation has progressed.”

Ganor was jailed last week after shocking authorities by retracting parts of his testimony.

Last week Ganor visited the Lod headquarters of the police’s top anti-corruption unit, Lahav 433, and told investigators he wished to alter key parts of the testimony he gave in the case. He is now saying he did not bribe anyone.

Police believe Israeli officials were bribed to push a massive deal for military naval vessels worth hundreds of millions of dollars, in what some have called the largest suspected graft scandal in the country’s history.

Ganor, a former agent in Israel for the German shipbuilder Thyssenkrupp, signed an agreement with prosecutors in July 2017 to become a state witness and cooperate in the probe, which focused on the period he worked for the company between 2009 and 2017. He has admitted to bribing a string of senior officials in order to help secure contracts for Thyssenkrupp with Israel’s Defense Ministry.

Ganor told police he stood behind the facts in his prior testimony, but said the payments he gave were consulting fees and not bribes, the Calcalist website reported. Ganor claimed he was pressured by the police to describe circumstances to match the money to a criminal story centered on the claim that he acted to bribe senior state employees.

On February 20, the Rishon Lezion Magistrate’s Court agreed that suspicions leveled against Ganor — of obstructing an investigation, bribery, fraud and money laundering — should be re-investigated in light of Ganor’s new version of events. She ordered Ganor held in custody for five days,

On Sunday his detention was extended another five days when the judge ruled concerns over obstructing the investigation had “become stronger and even expanded to additional areas.”

Police said their investigation is at the point that does not require Ganor to remain in jail.