Netanyahu slams as ‘libel’ AG’s reported concern he’s being followed

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is pushing back against a story in the Haaretz daily saying Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit, who indicted the premier in a series of graft cases, has told subordinates of concerns he’s being followed.

According to Haaretz, Mandelblit has told some people he works with that he acts as if his phone is being tapped and that he is being followed from place to place. The newspaper quoted him recently telling a subordinate to close the blinds in his office ahead of a meeting, concerned that someone could take pictures through the window.

The piece, an analysis saying Mandelblit believes Netanyahu is a danger to the country, did not quote the attorney general saying definitely that he was being tracked or that Netanyahu was responsible for this.

“Today [reporter] Gidi Weitz in Haaretz tells of another false and shocking libel against me, which this time is attributed to the attorney general. Unbelievable,” Netanyahu wrote on Twitter.

The prime minister, who slammed Mandelblit’s decision to indict him in November as an “attempted coup,” grouped the attorney general’s reported concerns with past “libel” by ex-police chief Roni Alsheich and senior investigator Roni Rittman.

Alsheich had alleged in an interview that officers investigating Netanyahu were put under pressure and being followed, while leaked emails suggested that Rittman believed a female police officer who had accused him of sexual assault was doing so to try and bring him down.

Netanyahu, who denies any criminal wrongdoing, has repeatedly claimed that the charges against him are the efforts of political rivals, the media and law enforcement to remove him from office.