The lawyer appointed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to defend a controversial law that legalizes West Bank settlement houses built on private Palestinian land was recently interrogated by police, Channel 2 news reports.
The lawyer, Harel Arnon, reportedly chose to remain silent when interrogators grilled him over an affair involving his client Ari Harow, Netanyahu’s former chief of staff, who is suspected of fraud.
Netanyahu was forced to enlist a lawyer to defend the settlement law in court after Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit, a critic of the legislation, announced that he wouldn’t do so. The law, which received blanket condemnations from the international community, is already being challenged in the High Court of Justice by left-wing groups.
Ari Harow, former chief of staff of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, at a Likud meeting in the Israeli parliament, November 24, 2014. (Miriam Alster/Flash90)
Arnon tells Channel 2 that he was interrogated in connection with the sale of a company owned by Harow, who he says is a client of his firm.
“I cooperated fully with the interrogators within the constraints imposed on me as a lawyer dealing with my clients’ affairs,” he is quoted as saying. “I’m positive that the suspicions against Harow will turn out to be a red herring.”
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