Court says prosecutors mishandled probe of Netanyahu

A probe into the financial conduct of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was mishandled by the state prosecutors who eventually closed the case, the High Court of Justice said in a report.

The three-year investigation into alleged irregularities by Netanyahu, addressed by the court in a 25-page statement released on Friday, afforded him preferential treatment because of the “public and institutional implications involving the investigation of the prime minister,” the report said, according to Ynet.

The affair, dubbed “Bibitours” by the Hebrew press, centered on allegations that Netanyahu had double billed travel expenses while serving as a member of Knesset.

The allegations, published by Channel 10 in 2011, related to several trips to London and the United States that Netanyahu took with family in 2006, when he was opposition chief. He was suspected of billing more than one organization for the same trip and of using private jets without clearing it with the Knesset Ethics Committee.

When questioned, Netanyahu’s attorney David Shimron said the Knesset had paid for a flight to London and that Israel Bonds had financed his wife’s travel expenses but had mistakenly attributed the receipt to the Likud leader. He also claimed that two invoices issued for a single trip to New York were provided by a single organization, which had mistakenly issued one invoice under another name.

In September, the state decided to not pursue a criminal investigation against Netanyahu over the allegations, effectively closing the lengthy probe.

The High Court’s statement regarding the handling of the case came after a group of petitioners, led by Labor Party MK Mickey Rosenthal, petitioned the court to release its account of the probe.

“The [prosecution’s] approach was intended to thwart, in most cases, the possibility of conducting a criminal investigation,” the petition charged.

The petitioners also demanded to know why Shimron, and not the prime minister, was questioned in the affair, and why the investigation took three years. The suit had been thrown out by Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein in part due to the length of time that had elapsed since the alleged misconduct.

The State Attorney’s Office rejected the findings of the High Court report over the weekend, countering that the decision to not prosecute Netanyahu was apolitical and that there was no necessity to question the prime minister himself.