Defiant Hazan finds support at Likud meet, refuses lie detector

Oren Hazan, the Likud Knesset member at the heart of a political scandal after a television exposé alleged he regularly used drugs and solicited prostitutes before becoming a lawmaker, claimed innocence Wednesday evening but said he would not submit to a lie detector test.

Speaking to reporters at a Likud party meeting in Tel Aviv, Hazan said he was unwilling to undergo a polygraph test, even if it would dispel the accusations against him.

Instead he accused the media of subjecting him to character assassination, and pointed out that nobody making allegations against him was required to take a lie detector test.

“There is no doubt in my mind that this was a deliberate targeted assassination of the deputy Knesset speaker,” Hazan said referring to the parliamentary position he was suspended from Tuesday, one day after the allegations surfaced.

Hazan was greeted by dozens of supporters after the meeting at the Tel Aviv Fairgrounds; many held signs with messages of support for the freshman lawmaker that read “Be strong — don’t let them break your spirit,” and “This is persecution.”

On Monday, a Channel 2 report alleged that Hazan had used crystal meth and obtained prostitutes for clients while managing a casino in Burgas, Bulgaria, presenting testimonies by acquaintances and casino staff.

The report also presented a number of documents, emails and social media posts and photographs supporting the claims and tying Hazan to the casino’s management.

Hazan said he would take legal action against Channel 2 reporter Amit Segal for the report.

“Since when have we become a society that believes, pardon my expression, prostitutes and drug addicts hiding in the shadows over someone who was democratically elected and received thousands of votes, and who, at this very moment is getting thousands of ‘likes,’ voicemails and support from the public?”

“Amit Segal — get ready, you and I are going to meet in court,” Hazan added. “The lies you spread will soon be dispelled.”

Hazan has long maintained that he never managed the Bulgarian casino, but a hotel “where there was also a casino,” and that it was managed by a person he had no contact with.

According to Channel 2, however, the casino in question is not inside a hotel, and the hotel he claimed to have managed has had the same management for over 20 years — unrelated to Hazan.

A man identified as a former friend of Hazan, interviewed by the television station with a blurred face and distorted voice, recalled times in Burgas, Bulgaria, where Hazan had “marijuana and crystal meth and we sniffed it.”

Asked whether Hazan also partook, the man said “yeah, totally.”

“I can say with certainty that I remember one case where I was sitting with a guy… actually two guys, one of them came to Oren really naturally and asked – ‘can you get me a girl for tonight?’ and Oren was like ‘yeah, consider it done,’” said the man, who added that he was willing to take a lie detector test.

“Everything that drives Oren Hazan is this swagger: ‘I’ll take care of you, I’ll take care of everything’,” he recounted.

Asked about Hazan’s denying the details of an earlier television report on his conduct, the man said “he is lying, everyone who knows him knows it’s an inseparable part of his personality, he’s a pathological liar. I think he even believes his own lies because he can be quite convincing.”

On Tuesday, Hazan reportedly threatened to dig up embarrassing information about Knesset Speaker MK Yuli Edelstein, after the latter banned him from chairing Knesset sessions.

Sources in Edelstein’s bureau said Hazan had threatened to find scandalous information about the Knesset Speaker and publicize it,

According to a report on Channel 1 Tuesday, soon after the swearing-in of the Knesset, a Bulgarian official contacted Israeli officials and asked that Hazan not be involved in any relations between the two countries.

The lawmaker only ranked a lowly 30 in the Likud election list, but became an MK after his party won a surprising 30 seats in the March elections.