Allegations made by Israel's police chief suggesting that "powerful figures" tried to dig up dirt on the officers involved in the corruption investigations against the prime minister sparked a major backlash Thursday, as former top police officials said that the fact such suspicions have gone uninvestigated was a significant professional failure on the commissioner's part.
The police said Thursday that there was sufficient evidence for an indictment against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Case 1,000, which centers on gifts Netanyahu and his wife, Sara, allegedly received from Israeli businessman Arnon Milchan and Australian billionaire James Packer. Investigators believe the gifts totaled hundreds of thousands of dollars, saying Netanyahu could be charged with bribery, fraud and breach of trust.
In a Wednesday interview with Channel 12's investigative and current affairs program "Uvda" ("Fact"), Police Commissioner Roni Alsheikh said, "Private investigators were gathering information on police investigators involved in the cases against Netanyahu. That's a fact. There are people sniffing around the investigators, their families and their neighbors, asking questions and gathering information. And let's just say these are professionals. They know what they're doing."
Asked why the police have not investigated these suspicions Alsheikh said, "That's not always in the interest of the case, and it could potentially taint it."
He stressed that "this [suspicion] isn't the product of a conspiratorial mind. It's fact."
Netanyahu described the allegations as "shocking" and "ludicrous," saying that the commissioner's statement has tainted the investigation.
"Any reasonable person has to ask whether people making such delusional remarks about the prime minister can serve as impartial investigators and issue objective recommendations," Netanyahu wrote on Facebook.
Maj. Gen. (ret.) Yossi Sedbon, formerly head of the police's Investigations and Intelligence Unit, said suspicions of that nature should have stopped the investigation against the prime minister in its tracks.
"If I were in the commissioner's shoes, I would immediately stop the investigation and look into this issue. It's the commissioner's job to protect his officers and stop anyone harassing them," he said.
Police directives include guidelines on dealing with cases in which officers and their families are harassed or threatened, which clearly state that in any such case, "efforts must be made to identify the individual threatening police officers and bringing them to justice."
"They [the police] have an obligation to investigate such things. Not only would it not compromise the case, it would help it," Sedbon said. "Had they stopped to investigate they would have found whoever was behind it. This was a very problematic remark by the commissioner."
A senior police officer familiar with the workings of the Major Crimes Unit wondered, "After this, how can the police claim that the decisions made in the cases involving the prime minister were aboveboard?"
A senior officer with the National Fraud Unit noted, "The interview did well to showcase the commissioner's intelligence and personality, but it also showed that he lacks understanding of how the media works, which is a failure on the part of his advisers. This looked more like a retirement interview.
"He shouldn't have mentioned the investigations, let alone the issue with the private investigators. Coming from Alsheikh, I can't imagine that such a thing wasn't investigated."
The commissioner, he continued, "made a highly problematic remark. He couldn't have imagined it would be problematic, but now it's an even bigger issue. Saying such a thing happened and stopped isn't enough. Since when does the police fail to follow up on attempted obstruction of justice?
"The police march suspects into court every day and spare no effort to convince the judges that obstruction of justice warrants jail time. Something like this happens during the most sensitive case the police are investigating and it's not investigated? That's beyond strange," he said.
'The commissioner made a big mistake'
Investigators working on high-profile cases brief the police commissioner on their findings routinely, especially when an investigation nears its end.
"The commissioner is the No. 1 police officer, but he's not the No. 1 investigator. His job is to make sure investigators do their job well and with integrity," a former senior officer told Israel Hayom.
"I think Alsheikh has gone too far. Saying things behind closed doors and making sure they are leaked is one thing. Stepping in front of the camera and leveling accusations at the prime minister is problematic, and if Netanyahu was not currently under investigation they would name a commission of inquiry [into the allegations]. One should be named anyway – this cannot be left unresolved," he said.
Former police chiefs considered supporters of Alsheikh also found it difficult to defend his actions.
One former commissioner who declined to be named said that the remarks inexorably harmed Alsheikh's working relationship with Netanyahu, so the commissioner is unlikely to be named for a second term in office.
"The prime minister is right to say that you can't just sling mud at him and run. The commissioner has made a big mistake."
Commenting on the controversy in an interview with Army Radio, Netanyahu's attorney Amit Haddad said, "I was surprised to hear that some people seriously believe that the prime minister sent [private] investigators to follow the [police] investigators who questioned him.
"This claim is so baseless and so bizarre – we could barely believe it was even made."
