Police ramp up probe into massive corruption case
State freezes attorney Ronel Fisher’s bank accounts and siezes his yacht, set to charge him with buying and selling information
Judah Ari Gross is The Times of Israel's religions and Diaspora affairs correspondent.
Police raided the home of attorney Ronel Fisher Monday, freezing his bank accounts and seizing his yacht and automobiles. The state attorney is expected to present an indictment against the lawyer and TV personality later this week.
Fisher was arrested in July following a year-long investigation for allegedly selling confidential information to Ashdod Port union leader Alon Hassan about a corruption case against the port. Fisher was released to house arrest soon after, and was re-arrested in April 2015.
The attorney is now being investigated on additional charges of passing along information to criminal suspects regarding their cases in exchange for hundreds of thousands of dollars, and for transferring money to police officers in exchange for the termination of his defendants’ investigations.
His investigation has led to arrests of police officials, businesspeople and other attorneys. The former publisher of the Hebrew-language daily Maariv, Ofer Nimrodi, was among those arrested.
The state attorney is also expected to indict retired police officer Eran Malka, who was involved in July’s Hassan case and allegedly provided Fisher with confidential information in exchange for payment. Malka, who worked in the Lahav 433 Investigation Unit, was brought in for questioning along with Fisher last week.
Another of Fisher’s alleged accomplices, former Tel Aviv district attorney Ruth David, fainted Friday ahead of a hearing for the extension of her remand. But police suspect it was a stunt, “an attempt to foil the current extension of her arrest,” and called for the hearing to be conducted in her absence. A police official said that there was evidence of David counseling previous clients to feign fainting.
Fisher and Malka also claimed to have suffered mental breakdowns during the investigation.
The recent move on Fisher also encouraged the Police Investigation Unit to present David with further indictments of corruption and obstruction of justice. New information came to light Sunday that David was involved in another scandal, involving contractor Yair Biton.
According to Channel 2, David admitted in interrogation that she had passed confidential information to Biton and had even attempted to convince another Tel Aviv district attorney to leave his job in order to interrupt Biton’s investigation.
Following her collapse Friday, David was taken to a hospital and was released to house arrest.
In the case against Fisher, the Police Investigation Unit, the Justice Ministry’s internal affairs department, will attempt to use the charges against Eran Malka to force him to turn over information against higher ranking police officials as part of a plea deal.
The attorney general’s office has forbidden any deal with Malka until he has been indicted. According to officials, the information Malka could offer against a police commander has been discounted and even some additional information Malka has against a retired police official is also shrouded in doubt
Malka spoke with the press Monday for the first time since his role in the Fisher investigation came to light. Outside of the courthouse where an extension of his and Fisher’s remands were being discussed, Malka said, “I will not get out of this. I will have to pay a price, but it will be okay in the end.
“My becoming a state’s witness is not on the agenda,” he said. “I took responsibility for my actions. I will pay the price, and with great bravery. There is no choice.”
Malka claimed he was “more or less” caught up in the investigation due to circumstances beyond his control. According to Malka, he did not give Fisher information for the money. “Money is not an issue in this story,” he said.
Judge Joya Skappa-Shapiro explained Monday’s decision to extend the remands of Fisher and Malka, citing alleged attempts to obstruct the ongoing investigation.
According to Skappa-Shapiro, Justice Ministry investigators met after accidentally alerting Fisher that his cellphone had been tapped. “There is a line between a legitimate consultation — in which a criminal suspect meets with his attorney before questioning — and a meeting of several people, some of whom are suspects in the same case, whose purpose is to coordinate testimonies and attempt to prevent future interrogations,” the judge said.
“It seems that, in this case, the evidence indicates this line was crossed,” she said.
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