Former AG: Proceedings against Deri were too drawn out, law enforcement didn’t excel

Former attorney general Avichai Mandelblit acknowledged in comments aired Sunday that a lengthy criminal investigation against Shas party leader Aryeh Deri that culminated last year was too protracted, and noted that the expelled cabinet member had never agreed to bow out of political life as part of his plea bargain.

Deri was convicted a year ago of wide-ranging tax offenses following a probe that dated back to 2016. Despite the conviction, he was appointed as a minister in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s new cabinet late last year, a move that the High Court of Justice recently struck down, kicking off a furious battle among allied lawmakers to pass legislation that will override the court and allow his return, as part of a larger judicial overhaul it is advancing.

In comments to Channel 12 news broadcast Sunday, Mandelblit said he regretted the way the investigation of Deri was handled.

“Justice for Deri was drawn out. I think there was a problem there with the investigation,” Mandelblit said. “The law enforcement system did not excel in this case.”

The comments were made as part of a wide-ranging interview Mandelblit gave to Channel 12, the lion’s share of which was broadcast on Thursday night. In that part, he warned that the government’s planned judicial reform was tantamount to “regime change” and would destroy the Israeli legal system.

It was unclear why the comments on Deri were edited out of the interview that aired last week.

Deri was initially suspected of bribery when the investigation began in 2016, but Mandelblit ended up accusing him of the lesser offenses of failing to report income to tax authorities on two occasions and additional tax offenses committed while selling Jerusalem apartments to his brother Shlomo Deri.

The Shas leader, who had served jail time for previous offenses, was given only a suspended sentence as part of the deal reached with Mandelblit. Because Deri indicated that he was stepping away from politics and quit the previous Knesset, it was never determined whether he needed a timeout from legislative or government activity, as the law prescribes for more serious offenses.

The High Court ruled last month that by returning to the government, Deri had misled the judge in his case over his political future. It cited that as a factor in the decision to strike down his appointment as health and interior minister, alongside a determination that appointing the thrice-convicted politician to the high-ranking roles was “unreasonable in the extreme.”

The High Court said that Deri had given the Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court the impression that he was retiring from political life. Deri nonetheless went on to head the Shas party’s Knesset slate in the 2022 elections.

His claim that he was quitting the Knesset, and ostensibly politics, “influenced the criminal process regarding the tax fraud issue,” the High Court said. It indicated that he could not go back on testimony to the lower court due to the legal principle of estoppel, which prohibits parties to legal suits from changing claims in different proceedings.

During the hearing on the petitions against Deri, Deri’s attorney claimed that the Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court had misunderstood his statement that he was retiring from the Knesset and would henceforth perform public service from outside the parliament.

Several of the High Court justices took exception to this claim during the hearing itself, including Justice Alex Stein, who said at the time: “One cannot say one is retiring [from public life] and get the benefit of a convenient plea bargain for oneself, and after a little while say the opposite and get appointed as an MK and minister.”

Nonetheless, Mandelblit said in the comments aired Sunday that Deri’s political future had never been an aspect of the plea deal.

“I didn’t hear any commitment that he was quitting political life forever or any other amount of time,” Mandelblit said. “It was not part of the bargain, unequivocally. We didn’t discuss it. He needed to make the decision if he was staying as a minister or not.”

Still, the former attorney general added that once Deri did make the decision to stay, he should have triggered a ruling as to whether his conviction carried “moral turpitude,” a designation that would require a seven-year break from politics.

Mandelblit also pushed back against claims that the plea bargain was a sweetheart deal.

“The deal was not lenient. It was proper. Everyone accepted it,” he said.