Police chief, Knesset speaker meet over leaked MK criminal dossier

Israel Police Commissioner Roni Alsheich and Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein met Wednesday to discuss a recently leaked secret police document detailing evidence regarding alleged offenses committed by dozens of Knesset members.

The head of the Police Investigations and Intelligence Department, Meni Yitzhaki, was also present in the meeting, according to reports in Hebrew-language media.

“The concentration of information about the MKs raises doubts and questions,” Edelstein said Tuesday after requesting the meeting with Alsheich, a day after the document’s existence was revealed by Channel 10.

The document, reportedly drawn up on Yitzhaki’s instruction in 2014, was said to include information on alleged corruption cases and other crimes which could form the basis of criminal investigations.

The Monday TV report did not detail which lawmakers were suspected of crimes.

On Tuesday, Channel 2 reported Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan was among the lawmakers named in the document, detailing his alleged offenses from the period he served as communications and environmental affairs minister in the previous government. The report did not detail what police suspicions were in the file.

On Wednesday, Erdan denied any prior knowledge of the police document during a plenum discussion on the issue.

“I would like to emphasize that I was personally never made aware of the existence of such a document. I am not familiar with it, and do not know what it contains,” he said at the Knesset.

Erdan made his remarks during a debate initiated by Meretz MK Michal Rozin debating her proposal to launch a parliamentary committee to investigate the police’s handling of the allegations detailed in the document.

“Israeli police are not in the habit of collecting data on ministers or MKs,” Erdan added.

The plenum discussion on the police document was postponed until the Knesset Internal Affairs Committee could discuss the issue next week.

Erdan was never investigated formally, the report noted. Like the information collected on dozens of MKs, the secret file remained in a drawer for years and was never given to the prosecutor’s office.

The Justice Ministry refused to comment on the report or the existence of the document.

The document is said to include information on alleged corruption cases and other crimes which could form the basis for criminal investigations.

The Monday Channel 10 report noted that Yitzhaki’s predecessor Yoav Segalovich had expressly forbidden the creation of such documents, out of concern that they could be exploited by interested parties to target politicians of their choosing. (Segalovich joined the Yesh Atid party, led by Yair Lapid, last month.)

Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit confirmed the document’s existence, saying Monday the file was intended for internal review purposes in order to monitor whether there was information on probes into politicians that he had not been made aware of.

In a statement to the TV station Monday, police neither confirmed nor denied the existence of the document, saying only that Yitzhaki’s policy was “to check any intelligence information professionally and thoroughly and to carry out any procedures mandated to the fullest.”

The police denied systematically gathering information against Knesset members in order to check whether they had been involved in wrongdoing, and stressed that any investigation against a lawmaker requires the authorization of the attorney general.

They added that all information-gathering was done according to law and “with appropriate sensitivity.”

They said that any evidence that raised substantial suspicions against a member of the Knesset was immediately sent to the attorney general or the state prosecutor for review.