Police minister urges AG to investigate leaks after Netanyahu blames top cop

​Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan said Sunday that he has asked the attorney general to open an investigation into leaks from two ongoing corruption probes into the prime minister, a day after Benjamin Netanyahu suggested the police commissioner may be the source.

Erdan said that while he has “full confidence” in Israel Police Commissioner Roni Alsheich, the sensitivity of the issue “requires an investigation to determine who is trying to damage the prime minister and leaking to the media.”​​

On Saturday night, after Channel 2 news reported that police investigators were expected to summon the prime minister for further questioning in the graft probes against him, Netanyahu intimated that Alsheich was behind the “tsunami of leaks” of information regarding the probes.

Hours later, police hit back at Netanyahu. “We will not be dragged into baseless attacks meant to disrupt the work of the police and harm the legitimacy of the rule of law,” a police statement provided to media read.

Speaking to Israel Radio Sunday, Erdan, whose ministry oversees law enforcement authorities, said that he didn’t think police were behind the report that Netanyahu would be summoned for further interrogation sessions, but that “these things can’t be left in the air.”

“I trust the commissioner and his professionalism and I think that the prime minister also does, but if things need to be checked then they need to be checked,” he said.

“If there is a feeling, like the prime minister has, that there are leaks from his investigations and details being published, the attorney general can, and in my opinion should, open an investigation,” Erdan added, saying that he had spoken to Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit on Saturday evening and instructed him to open a “wide-ranging probe” into the issue.

Suggesting that the leaks could have come from the state prosecution or even the office of the attorney general himself, Erdan said, “Authorities need to respond to the reports or check where the information came from. When you leave it in the air you damage the public trust in law enforcement.”

The Saturday night report said that police were deepening their investigations into the actions of the prime minister and that he will be summoned for questioning in the two investigations against him, cases 1000 and 2000, in the coming two weeks.

Case 1000 relates to allegations that Netanyahu and his wife Sara received illicit gifts from billionaire benefactors, most notably hundreds of thousands of shekels’ worth of cigars and champagne from the Israeli-born Hollywood producer Arnon Milchan.

Case 2000 involves a suspected illicit quid pro quo deal between Netanyahu and Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper publisher Arnon “Noni” Mozes that would have seen the prime minister hobble a rival daily, the Sheldon Adelson-backed Israel Hayom, in return for more favorable coverage from Yedioth.

Investigators are also expected to set a date for Netanyahu to provide testimony as a witness in Case 3000, which involves suspected corruption by several associates of the prime minister in the sale of German submarines to Israel, the report said.

Netanyahu, who has denied any wrongdoing, has increasingly lashed out at the media amid developments in the cases, accusing the press of playing up the investigations against him in order to end his premiership.

Last month, Alsheich said that the coming year would be “complicated” in terms of the corruption cases involving Netanyahu and that police have been “leaving no stone unturned” in the investigations.

In his Saturday night statement, Netanyahu also said that Alsheich, whom he personally installed as police chief in 2015, has betrayed his commitment to preventing leaks from investigations. “Since Lior Horev was appointed to be the police’s external political adviser at the cost of millions [of shekels] of taxpayer money and without a public tender for the position, the illegal leaks have become a tsunami, and the decision to avoid recommendations [for indictment] disappeared as a result,” the statement said.

Horev is a veteran political operative who has served as media adviser to a number of high-profile politicians, including the late former prime minister Ariel Sharon. He was hired by the police as a media adviser in March 2016, a few months after Alsheich was appointed commissioner, to the tune of NIS 800,000 ($228,000) a year.

Despite public outcry at the high salary, including a hearing on the appointment in the Knesset’s Interior Affairs Committee, Horev’s contract was extended by a further three years this March.

Hovav alleged Sunday that the prime minister was looking for a fight. “Netanyahu’s claims are absurd. He is trying to draw to police into a personal battle,” he told Radio 103.

Speaking to The Times of Israel, he denied communicating with journalists over the investigation, asserting that all press inquiries go through the police spokesperson’s office.

Most of Netanyahu’s Likud ministers have come to his defense during the nine months of the ongoing investigations, regularly rejecting reports about the probes and echoing his attacks on the media. Erdan, however, was largely left on his own Sunday, with government members apparently wary of taking the prime minister’s side against the police.

Transportation Minister Yisrael Katz, speaking to Army Radio, repeatedly refused to answer questions about Netanyahu’s statements, and Regional Cooperation Minister Tzachi Hanegbi ended a Channel 2 interview when asked about the issue. Other ministers have declined media appearances all together.

In response, Likud’s coalition chairman, David Bitan, a close associate of Netanyahu, labeled his colleagues “a group of chickens,” saying that they were failing in their job of defending the prime minister.