Prosecutors inform prison chief Yaakobi of plans to indict him on ethics violations

Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara and State Attorney Amit Aisman on Thursday gave Prison Service chief Kobi Yaakobi a three-week deadline to decide on a hearing date as they weigh indicting him for suspected ethical violations.

In July, the State Attorney’s Office announced it was considering filing charges, subject to a hearing, against Yaakobi on suspicion that he informed Avishai Muallem, formerly a senior police detective in the West Bank, of a covert probe involving him.

The prison chief is being granted a hearing to present evidence in his defense before prosecutors decide whether to formally charge him with breach of trust and obstructing an investigation. This hearing has not yet taken place.

Muallem, who has since been indicted, allegedly obstructed investigations into Jewish nationalist violence in a bid to curry favor with National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir.

Yaakobi, who served as Ben Gvir’s security secretary before moving to the Prison Service, is suspected of leaking the probe’s existence to Muallem over a wiretapped phone call.

The Prison Service chief’s attorney has been updated on the details of the hearing process, the Department of Internal Police Investigations (DIPI) said in a statement. The DIPI, which operates under the State Attorney’s Office, investigates police and other internal security officials on suspicion of criminal offenses.

Lashing out at the announcement, Ben Gvir said he supports Yaakobi, and declared that he will remain in charge of Israel’s prisons “for many years.”

Instead of an indictment, Ben Gvir argued that Yaakovi “deserves the Israel Prize,” for his commitment to implement the far-right minister’s policy, and “the dramatic changes he has made for the benefit of state security.”

“This is a continuation of the attempt to harm senior officers who implement government policy,” Ben Gvir said of Baharav-Miara, saying that “she is doing this to destroy the right-wing government.”

“There is nothing new in the attorney general’s announcement,” said Yaakobi’s lawyer, Uri Korb. “Commissioner Yaakobi is an honest and highly distinguished law enforcement officer who has never been blemished in his actions.”

After Yaakobi was questioned in late 2024, DIPI alleged that the commissioner informed Muallem over a wiretapped phone call that a probe against him was underway, and sources in the internal law enforcement agency told Haaretz that the phone call constituted “classic obstruction” and provided them with “conclusive” evidence for an indictment against Yaakobi.

Muallem is suspected of having repeatedly faked probes into Jewish nationalist attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank, creating the appearance of a thorough investigation while letting perpetrators go unpunished.

Ben Gvir himself has repeatedly criticized investigations into settler violence by Israeli authorities, which he characterized as “selective persecution of right-wing people.”