Sara Netanyahu to join PM on Latin America trip, despite looming charges

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s wife, Sara, will embark with her husband Sunday evening for a 10-day trip to Argentina, Colombia, Mexico and the US, even as she faces an impending fraud indictment for misuse of state funds.

It was unclear until Sunday afternoon whether Sara Netanyahu would join the prime minister on the trip.

In an unusual step, the Prime Minister’s Office, in a statement about the upcoming visit issued Friday, mentioned only his name, leaving unanswered the question of whether Sara would be coming along.

Netanyahu rarely travels without his spouse, and the PMO usually notes clearly in its announcements that she is part of the entourage.

The trip — hailed by Netanyahu as “historic” because it marks the first time a sitting Israeli prime minister visits Latin America — comes amid investigations of alleged criminal wrongdoing by the Netanyahus and an impending indictment for Sara Netanyahu.

A draft indictment to be served on Sara Netanyahu runs to 16 pages and details allegedly illegal spending of up to 25,000 shekels (some $7,000) per month by the prime minister’s wife on meals from top restaurants in Jerusalem.

The prime minister is also suspected in at least two separate cases.

Adding to the first couple’s woes, their eldest son, Yair Netanyahu, caused a media and political storm on Friday after he posted to his Facebook page a cartoon aimed at critics of his father, but widely panned for being based on anti-Semitic motifs.

Israel’s Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit announced on Friday that he intends to indict Mrs Netanyahu for fraud for allegedly diverting a total of some NIS 360,000 ($102,000) of shekels in public funds for her own use.

The indictment also names Ezra Saidoff, a former deputy director general of the Prime Minister’s Office, as a defendant in the case. The indictments are pending hearings for both Sara Netanyahu and Saidoff.

Israel’s Channel 10 news obtained the draft indictment and detailed its contents on Friday night.

It names top Jerusalem restaurants Machneyuda (owned by celebrity chef Assaf Granit), Cavalier and HaMotzi (owned by Israeli Top Chef winner Avi Levi) among a long list of eateries from which Sara Netanyahu ordered food.

The monthly bills for such meals, as specified in the draft indictment, totaled thousands of shekels, including over NIS 18,000 in April 2011, over NIS 17,000 in May 2011, over NIS 22,000 in November 2011 and over NIS 24,000 in December 2011.

Israel’s Channel 2 news, in a report on the looming indictment, said the meals were not for VIP and foreign guests at the Prime Minister’s Residence.

The prime minister is the subject of two separate corruption investigations, known as Cases 1000 and 2000.

In Case 1000, Netanyahu is suspected of receiving 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 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.

Netanyahu denies any wrongdoing.

In addition, a growing number of close former associates of the prime minister have recently been quizzed over their involvement in yet another investigation, so-called Case 3000, which is examining Israel’s multi-billion-shekel purchase of naval vessels from Germany. Netanyahu is not a suspect in the case, but the fact that the vessels were acquired under his watch, and that many people close to him are involved, has prompted some of his critics to call on the prime minister to quit over the affair.