Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday was interrogated for the second time at his Jerusalem residence by police in relation to suspicion of receiving inappropriate gifts from business acquaintances, Israeli media reported. The PM was questioned for five hours by the Police National Investigations Unit, following a 9-hour inquiry Monday. The Thursday session included references to a yet to be publicized set of allegations which police have been keeping mired in deep secrecy under special confidentiality arrangements.
Police were hoping to surprise the PM with the details of the secret allegations, after the initial meeting found him well prepared with answers to every one of their questions. Those had to do with records of gifts from several business acquaintances, including billionaire Ronald Lauder – which Netanyahu described as being below the legal limit in terms of their monitory value.
AG Avicahi Mandelblit issued a statement after the Thursday interrogation explaining that police investigators presented a very long list of allegations regarding Netanyahu’s integrity. He noted that “the investigation has developed and branched away from the original material.”
So far, according to Mandelblit, investigators have decided to drop old allegations about Netanyahu’s running a second, clandestine elections headquarters in 2009; voting fraud in his favor by forging computer data at the 2009 Likud primaries; double billing for trips abroad; and receiving gifts, including flights, from wealthy associates.
Netanyahu, for his part, tweeted after the Monday questioning: “Long years of daily persecution of me and my family turned out yesterday to be nothing – nothing.”
שנים ארוכות של רדיפה יומיומית נגדי ונגד משפחתי התבררו אתמול כלא כלום – שום דבר. אני חוזר ואומר: לא יהיה כלום – כי אין כלום. pic.twitter.com/MH8LJFSm4r — Benjamin Netanyahu (@netanyahu) January 3, 2017