Netanyahu lashes his graft investigators as ‘afraid of the truth’

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejects criticism of him by an unnamed official in the state prosecution, saying the official’s comments show the prosecution is “afraid of the truth” in his case.

The senior law enforcement official accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu earlier today of trying to “deceive the public” and disrupt the criminal investigations against him with his demand to face the state witnesses who have testified against him in three graft probes, saying the prime minister was hoping to intimidate them into changing their testimony to police.

In a live statement on prime time television yesterday evening, Netanyahu demanded that police allow him to face his former aides and colleagues who have reportedly provided incriminating evidence against him in the three graft cases in which he is a suspect.

“Yesterday I asked, what are they afraid of,” Netanyahu writes on Twitter a short time ago, sharing an Army Radio report on the official’s comments. “Now it’s clear that they are afraid of the truth. I demand a confrontation with the state’s witnesses now. The public must know the whole truth.”

The “very senior official” in the state prosecution had told Army Radio: “Netanyahu wants to assert his power, influence and status to disrupt the investigation. In a confrontation with him, those state witnesses could give a different testimony to the one they gave police. They were forced to tell the truth as it is known to them, and they could easily surrender once again to Netanyahu’s influence when he appears in front of them.”

The official adds: “The Israeli public is being deceived, and not for the first time, by Netanyahu, who is making use of the masses’ naivete — meaning their lack of knowledge in those subjects. Anyway, no suspect has a right to a confrontation [with witnesses during the investigation stage] and it is inappropriate to hold an unnecessary and damaging confrontation.”

— Michael Bachner