Report: Family of PM’s late aide fail to cede phone to cops in probe of Sara Netanyahu
Children of Hanni Bleiweiss reportedly questioned by police after claiming to not know whereabouts of cellphone key to allegations that PM’s wife intimidated witnesses
Family members of Hanni Bleiweiss, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s late aide, were questioned Wednesday by police after failing to turn over her cellphone as part of a probe into the conduct of Netanyahu’s wife Sara, according to Hebrew media reports.
The investigation was opened after a report by Channel 12’s investigative show “Uvda” last month alleged that Sara Netanyahu had sought to intimidate a witness in her husband’s criminal trial and have protesters harass the attorney general, the deputy state attorney and others seen as hostile to the premier or his family.
The TV report relied heavily on correspondence between Sara Netanyahu and Bleiweiss, who died of cancer in March 2023 after decades of working for the prime minister.
Several Hebrew media outlets reported Wednesday that Bleiweiss’s three children were questioned over suspected obstruction of justice after they refused to hand over the cellphone to police, claiming that they did not know its whereabouts.
According to a report in Haaretz, Bleiweiss’s children have stuck to that assertion, and police have also not received any cooperation from “Uvda” researchers. A report in Ynet said police believe the family’s attorney may now be the one in possession of the phone.
Dozens of people reportedly filed claims with the police against Sara Netanyahu after the program detailed a lengthy pattern of her alleged misdeeds.
According to the claims made in the TV program, the prime minister’s wife and son were active in efforts to dig up dirt on his political rivals, intimidate key actors in his corruption trial and set law enforcement on protesters against him, while seeking the promotion of police officers who complied with their requests.
Sara Netanyahu allegedly instructed Bleiweiss to send activists from her husband’s Likud party to hurl obscenities at their neighbors, the parents of a fallen military pilot, who were active in demonstrations against the premier. She also is accused of ordering Bleiweiss to have Likud activists publish verbal attacks against Hadas Klein, a key witness in one of the criminal cases against the prime minister, and to demonstrate outside her house.
Bleiweiss’s family is reportedly planning to file a lawsuit of some NIS 8 million ($2,182,000) against the prime minister’s family, alleging that Netanyahu’s late aide was abused and humiliated in her role and suffered damage to her health as a result.
According to Channel 12, Bleiweiss’s family will allege that the Netanyahu family regularly had the late aide spend her own money for work, purchasing items including food for employees of the Likud party as well as personal products for the prime minister and his family, for which she was reliant on the Netanyahus for reimbursement.
The cancer-stricken aide was made to spend some NIS 400,000 ($109,000) of her own money during her employment, according to the lawsuit, which alleges that “in practice, the plaintiff was used as [the prime minister]’s ‘wallet.'”
