Likud minister skips police questioning and instead demands court free arrested associate

Flouting police’s attempts to question her, Social Equality Minister May Golan instead arrives at the Rishon Lezion Magistrate’s Court and demands her former adviser be released, after he was arrested earlier today on suspicion of fraud and other financial crimes.

Golan, a central suspect in a probe into alleged widespread fraud and misuse of taxpayer funds in her ministry, was summoned by police to be interrogated earlier today, after they went public with the investigation this morning.

Although her defense attorney initially signaled she would show up for questioning, Golan later announced she would only heed the summons if officers released her associate, a lawyer who used to serve as her adviser. She then skipped the interrogation altogether.

This evening in the courthouse, Golan says that she will “show up to any interrogation” once they release the lawyer. To a group of reporters gathered there, she adds that she “has nothing to fear and nothing to hide.”

The minister and her associates are suspected of fraud, misusing public funds for private purposes, creating fictitious positions in the Social Equality Ministry and concealing sources of funding. This was done through the use of NGOs and government systems as a “tool for illegally extracting funds,” police said earlier today.