Ex-Shin Bet head: PM once asked me to wiretap ministers for fear of leaks; PM’s office slams ‘fabricated affair,’ ‘coup attempt’

Former Shin Bet chief Yoram Cohen alleges that while he was at the helm of the security agency, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had once asked him to monitor government ministers and defense officials to ensure that they were not leaking information from a particularly sensitive security meeting.

He tells Kan Radio that Netanyahu “was afraid” that a “sensitive issue” discussed in the meeting would be leaked, and as such, instructed the Shin Bet to wiretap any participants.

“If someone leaks it, we will deal with it,” he recalls the premier telling him at the time.

Cohen served as the head of the Shin Bet from May 2011 until May 2016.

He posits that due to his ongoing corruption trial, Netanyahu has overseen “a systematic destruction of the most important national institutions in the country.

“They’re attacking the Supreme Court, they are coming out against the attorney general — Netanyahu has said there is an eighth front [in the war],” he says.

The Prime Minister’s Office in response accuses Cohen of “trying to create another fabricated ‘affair'” but does not deny that Netanyahu asked the former security chief to wiretap government ministers.

“The prime minister sought to protect a vital state secret, accepted the recommendations of the legal system, acted according to the law, and did not violate anyone’s rights,” the PMO says.

“Contrary to Cohen’s words, the real threat to Israel’s democracy is not from elected officials but from elements in the enforcement authorities who refuse to accept the voters’ decision and are trying to carry out a coup d’état through unchecked political investigations that would be unacceptable in any democracy,” the PMO charges.

In a succinct statement of his own, Opposition Leader Yair Lapid says: “There is no doubt as to who is telling the truth. Yoram Cohen or Benjamin Netanyahu.”