Israeli Police Recommend Indicting Netanyahu For Corruption: Report

Israeli police chiefs will rec­om­mend to the coun­try’s attor­ney gen­er­al that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu be indict­ed on cor­rup­tion charges, accord­ing to reports in local media.

The Times of Israel report­ed Wednesday that police chiefs, includ­ing the gen­er­al com­mis­sion­er of Israel’s police force, were in “unan­i­mous agree­ment” that Netanyahu should be indict­ed for alleged­ly accept­ing bribes and receiv­ing lav­ish gifts from wealthy bene­fac­tors, includ­ing Israeli-born Hollywood pro­duc­er Arnon Milchan.

Any rec­om­men­da­tion for an indict­ment would be sent to Israeli Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit, who will decide whether to indict the prime minister.
In a Facebook video Netanyahu acknowl­edged that the police would like­ly move to rec­om­mend his indict­ment, but dis­missed the alle­ga­tions against him and pre­dict­ed Mandelblit would not move to press charges.

“The State of Israel is a state of law. The law says that the one to deter­mine whether there is evi­dence against the prime min­is­ter is the attor­ney gen­er­al and he con­sults with the state attor­ney. The state pros­e­cu­tor recent­ly said in the Knesset that about half of the police’s rec­om­men­da­tions end with noth­ing,” Netanyahu said Wednesday.

“So do not be ner­vous … I am sure that at the end of the day the com­pe­tent legal bod­ies will come to one con­clu­sion, to the sim­ple truth: There is noth­ing,” he added.

Netanyahu’s cur­rent tenure as Israel’s prime min­is­ter began in 2009; he pre­vi­ous­ly held the office from 1996 to 1999. He was reelect­ed in 2015 with just over 23 per­cent of the vote share, with his Likud par­ty win­ning 30 seats in Israel’s parliament.

The right-lean­ing Israeli leader is a top ally of President Trump, who last year declared that the U.S. would rec­og­nize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

The move was wide­ly pop­u­lar with Netanyahu and Israelis, but inflamed ten­sions with Palestine and Arab coun­tries across the Middle East. http://​the​hill​.com/​p​o​l​i​c​y​/​i​n​t​e​r​n​a​t​i​o​n​a​l​/​3​7​2​7​7​2​-​i​s​r​a​e​l​i​-​p​o​l​i​c​e​-​r​e​c​o​m​m​e​n​d​-​i​n​d​i​c​t​i​n​g​-​n​e​t​a​n​y​a​h​u​-​f​o​r​-​c​o​r​r​u​p​t​i​o​n​-​r​e​p​ort