Concerns at Prosecutor's Office: Bribe clause may be removed from Case 4000
The hearing on Case 4000 suggests that the U.S. attorneys brought in to negate the relationship between positive coverage of the PM and the bribery offense managed to affect decisions.
By MATAN VASSERMAN/MAARIVAvichai Mandelblit(photo credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM)
Sources in the conference room in which the prime minister's hearing was held told Maariv, the sister publication of The Jerusalem Post, that it seems as though the American lawyers succeeded in making an impression as an auxiliary force to deny the connection in Case 4000 between the positive coverage of the Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his family and bribery.The sources also noted that the intensity of the focus on Case 2000, referring to talks between Netanyahu and Yedioth Aharonot publisher Arnon Moses, was weakened to the point in which the case may be cut off entirely with no indictment filed against him.Attorney Liat Ben Ari and Attorney-General Shai Nitzan insist on the bribery clause in Case 4000, while Attorney-General Avichai Mandelblit believes a lighter clause, such as a breach of trust, may be satisfactory.The sources additionally claim that in Case 1000, Netanyahu's attorneys seemed to have succeeded in minimizing his part in the case and to show that some of the gifts referred to in the case were not given to him knowingly, but rather were received by others surrounding him, including his wife Sara and son Yair. It therein seems as though Netanyahu's attorneys may reduce the cumulative gift value attributed to Netanyahu.A person noticeably missing from the hearings in Cases 1000 and 2000 was the attorney accompanying the cases, Deputy State Attorney Liat Ben Ari, because of a family vacation that was scheduled well in advance.
