Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu got here to his wife Sara’s protection Friday, saying the indictment filed against her a day earlier for misusing state funds was “a new height of absurdity.”
The prime minister’s wife is charged together with Ezra Saidoff, a former deputy director common of the Prime Minister’s Office, with fraud together with breach of belief.
The two are accused of fraudulently charging some NIS 359,000 ($100,000) in gourmand meals to the state’s expense between 2010 and 2013, violating legal guidelines that ban the ordering of ready meals when a chef is already employed on the official residence.
As acknowledged by the indictment, Netanyahu falsely claimed there was no prepare dinner on the time within the Jerusalem residence as a way to justify buying meals from eating places.
In a Facebook submit, the premier wrote that for the primary time in historical past a chief’s wife is indicted over meals and precooked meals. “Forget the fact that everybody ate from that food — house employees, official guests, even heads of state,” the assertion mentioned. “The most absurd thing about this indictment is based on an illegal procedure.”
He went on to repeat the declare made by his wife’s legal professionals Thursday that the laws governing expenditure within the residence had no authorized standing as a result of that they had not been authorised by the federal government.
Sara Netanyahu attends a reception on the Foreign Ministry celebrating the opening of the United States embassy in Jerusalem on May 13, 2018. (Hadas Parush/Flash90)
The legal professionals claimed that the Knesset Finance Committee, which is the one physique licensed to find out which of the prime minister’s bills are lined by the state, by no means authorised the laws that underpin the indictment. On the opposite, they mentioned, the committee had dominated that every one the bills of the prime minister and his household needs to be paid for by the state, much like the coverage within the president’s official residence.
“Five days before I entered office in 2009, three unauthorized clerks set a special procedure,” the prime minster wrote Friday. “But they didn’t get the legally required authorization from the Knesset Finance Committee.
“So this is an illegal procedure,” he mentioned. “An indictment based on an illegal procedure will not hold water.”
Sara Netanyahu’s attorneys mentioned: “There was no fraud and no breach of trust or accepting bribes or any crime at all. The prime minister’s wife, who is not a public servant, does not know the regulations, and passed a polygraph test when she was asked about this.”
“Not only is the indictment based on false claims,” they mentioned, “it is based entirely on invalid and illegal regulations that apply specifically to Prime Minister Netanyahu and to him alone.”
There had been and nonetheless are variations of opinion between the legal professionals defending Sara Netanyahu, Hebrew media reported Thursday. Some really feel one of the best strategy is to go to courtroom and crush the witnesses, by displaying they're unreliable and untrustworthy. Another staff of legal professionals working for the Netanyahu household wished to attempt to keep away from a trial, and work out a plea cope with Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit and State Prosecutor Shai Nitzan.
Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit speaks throughout a farewell ceremony for outgoing Supreme Court chief justice Miriam Naor in Jerusalem on November 6, 2017. (Flash90)
Hebrew information studies late Thursday urged the state may nonetheless be receptive to the thought of a plea cut price, regardless of having filed the costs.
Mandelblit and Nitzan had notified the prime minister’s wife of their intention to file prices a number of months in the past.
Negotiations for her to return a portion of the diverted cash and confess to the costs in alternate for avoiding prosecution broke down when the prime minister’s wife reportedly refused to pay the sums requested by prosecutors, telling her legal professionals she’d moderately go to jail than reimburse the state. Her legal professionals have denied such studies.
The prices against Saidoff are extra extreme, as he is additionally accused of illicitly hiring cooks and servers for personal meals on the Netanyahu residence. The PMO staffer additionally allegedly falsified invoices for such actions as a way to get them authorised.
Thursday’s prices got here after Nir Hefetz, a former Netanyahu household aide turned state’s witness, offered testimony to prosecutors relating to Sara Netanyahu’s alleged misappropriation of public funds for private use.
The determination to launch the investigation into Sara Netanyahu got here in mild of the state prosecutor’s advice, after allegations had been raised in a 2015 report by State Comptroller Yosef Shapira that detailed lavish spending on the official residence in Jerusalem, in addition to on the Netanyahus’ Caesarea residence.