Police have all but wrapped up two years of criminal investigations of suspected corruption by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The probes have yielded four thick files, three state’s witnesses, two police recommendations to indict on bribery charges and another on the way, and investigators are now putting the final touches on the heaviest case of them all, which is known as Case 4000.
Police Commissioner Roni Alsheikh will be leaving behind a clean desk when his term ends at the beginning of December. Police investigators have sent off two of the four cases to the State Prosecutor’s Office with recommendations to indict the prime minister. Case 1000 involves gifts to Netanyahu by Hollywood tycoon Arnon Milchan, and Case 2000 centers around a suspected quid pro quo deal with Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper publisher Arnon Mozes. Also in the pipeline are indictments of several top Netanyahu associates in Case 3000 involving Israel’s purchase of submarines from Germany, described by Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid as the gravest corruption scandal in Israeli history. Netanyahu himself is not yet a suspect in that affair. Case 4000 involving suspicion of bribery in Netanyahu’s past dealings with the then-major stakeholder of Bezeq telecommunications giant, Shaul Elovitz, will be handed over to prosecutors by the end of the year with a sweeping, unambiguous recommendation: Indict for bribery.
