From the Liveblog of
Tuesday, September 5, 2017
AG rejects demand to reveal details of submarine probe, grill PM
Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit rejects a petition demanding his office reveal details about an investigation into suspected corruption in the purchase of naval vessels from Germany, saying that to do so would jeopardize a probe that has already implicated a string of current and former senior officials and military figures.
“Law enforcement authorities cannot reveal at any given moment the findings that they have collected and the steps they plan to take,” his office says in response to the High Court of Justice petition. It says that to reveal such details would impede law enforcement’s “ability to do their jobs” and that they do not fall under the public’s right to know.
The petition also sought to force Mandelblit to interrogate Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a suspect in the affair, despite the fact that the attorney general has said he isn’t a suspect.
Several of Netanyahu’s associates, including his personal lawyer, have been implicated.
Mandelblit has been the target of a sustained campaign by activists who claim that he is protecting Netanyahu — the man who appointed him — and dragging his feet in several active investigations involving the prime minister.
The activists have been staging regular protests near the home of the attorney general in Petah Tikva, outside Tel Aviv, demanding that he indict the prime minister in the two investigations against him and name him as a suspect in the probe of suspected corruption in the purchase of naval vessels, including submarines, from Germany.
