Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sues journalist Ben Caspit for libel, demanding NIS 200,000 ($53,000) over “false and baseless” claims voiced in his weekly Friday column in the Maariv newspaper.
Caspit wrote in his last column that Netanyahu’s “emissary” MK Miki Zohar (Likud) in June handed a NIS 6 million ($1.6 million) pension benefit to the Knesset legal adviser Eyal Yinon, shortly before he was due to step down from the position.
Ben Caspit, political reporter for Ma’ariv, in the Prime Minister’s residence in Jerusalem, January 22, 2009. (Yossi Zamir/Flash 90)
Caspit also pointed out that that Yinon’s romantic partner, Amit Marari, is also the deputy attorney general in charge of criminal affairs, and is overseeing corruption cases into the prime minister — suggesting an illicit attempt to influence the outcome of those investigations.
In his lawsuit, Netanyahu’s lawyers say the column “didn’t contain many facts and was mainly composed of blatant and serious slander against the prime minister, lies and baseless libel.”
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