Erdan said to have new top cop candidate lined up

Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan has selected a new candidate for Police Commissioner and will formally submit his nomination in the coming days.

Hebrew media reports Friday said that the deputy chief of the Shin Bet security agency, whose Hebrew initial is Resh but whose full name is under gag order, is the top contender.

Erdan’s pick was reportedly approved by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu earlier this week, days before the prime minister and public security minister announced they were dropping the nomination of former Israel Defense Forces commander Gal Hirsch.

Both Netanyahu and Erdan agreed that the next commissioner must come from outside the police force, according to a Yisrael Hayom newspaper report.

After weeks of controversy and reports of misconduct, Erdan announced Wednesday that he would rescind the nomination of Hirsch as the next Israel Police Commissioner.

Erdan said in a statement clarifying the decision that “Gal Hirsch is not suspected of anything and nobody has filed a complaint against him.

“He’s a guiltless individual and he’s untainted!” Erdan added. “Unfortunately, in the State of Israel, investigating candidates is limited in time, and in recent days it was clear to me that the process will continue an unknown amount of weeks, at least.”

Netanyahu said in a statement Wednesday, following the conclusion of the Yom Kippur holiday, that “Hirsch is the right man for the job of commissioner — thus I’ve thought and thus I think today, too.

“But the process of appointment is difficult, prolonged and damaging, and doubtless worthy of reinvestigation,” he said. “Already Gal Hirsch’s good name has been harmed anew by critics for a month.”

Meanwhile, Channel 10 reported on Thursday night that the Israel Police had turned to the attorney general to request permission to launch an investigation into Hirsch’s Defensive Shield Holdings firm.

Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein said last week that a thorough examination of Hirsch’s businesses may take months and even then he could not guarantee that Hirsch would be totally in the clear.

Erdan had vehemently sought to appoint Hirsch, a former IDF officer and police outsider, as the next police chief, filling a gap in a police brass plagued with scandal. Senior police officers opposed the appointment from outside the force, and others also questioned Hirsch’s record during the 2006 Second Lebanon War.

In a move Hirsch called politically motivated, senior police officers have showed Erdan information implying that some of Defensive Shield Holdings’ businesses abroad were not entirely above board.

The company is a private security firm with a diverse array of services, and has done deals all over the world.

In one of its deals in Georgia, a former government minister — who has fallen from grace and left the country — was accused of using the deal with Defensive Shield to siphon state money. The former minister was an ex-Israeli.

Weinstein criticized Erdan’s insistence on appointing someone from outside the police ranks to head the organization. Speaking at a conference of lawyers last week, Weinstein said in an apparent jibe at Erdan that “it is inconceivable to me that as the passion to appoint a chief from outside the police grows, the achievements of the Israel Police are made to look nonexistent.”

Jacob Turkel, head of a committee on the appointment of officials to senior positions, sent Erdan a letter last week where he took a noncommittal stance and said he cannot recommend for or against the appointment of Hirsch.

Since the minister who did business with Hirsch is a wanted man in his own country, Israel cannot easily obtain documents that can ensure once and for all whether some aspects of his business there were illegal.

Weinstein, aware of the potential harm to Hirsch’s reputation, suggested that he submit additional documentation that can help dispel the allegations the Georgian government made against his company.

According to the Hebrew news website Ynet, Hirsch is also at liberty to come to the attorney general’s office for a private one-on-one hearing.