Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman got a big, unexpected boost on Saturday in his
“campaign” to have the criminal case against him closed. The support was
unexpected because it came from Police Commissioner Insp.-Gen. Yohanan
Danino.
He essentially said that because the alleged crimes were more
than 10 years old, the case should be closed.
Danino added that part of
his reasoning was that to prosecute a case after 10 years was not an effective
way to deter corruption, and actually sent the opposite message to corrupt
officials: that the wheels of justice are too slow to catch them.
The
foreign minister is under investigation for charges of fraud, breach of trust,
obtaining benefits through deceit, money laundering and witness
harassment.
According to a draft indictment made public more than a year
ago, Liberman is suspected of receiving millions of dollars, from private
businesspeople, through six to eight straw companies between 2001 and 2008 –
while a member of Knesset and holding various cabinet positions.
It is
highly unusual for a top law enforcement officer to put public pressure on the
State Attorney’s Office to close a case while the state is still deliberating.
Usually the standard law enforcement quote about such questions is “No comment
pending investigations.”
Therefore Danino’s remarks would appear out of
place even if he did not answer directly to Public Security Minister Yitzhak
Aharonovich – Liberman’s second in command in Yisrael Beytenu – and even if they
were not made during election season.
What was Danino trying to
accomplish? The background to the comments is that Attorney-General Yehuda
Weinstein said on November 8 that he would decide whether to close the case or
indict Liberman within a month.
Granted, Weinstein had hinted at this
decision numerous times in the past few years, but this was the first time that
he committed to a date before a court – in response to a petition demanding the
state make a decision on the case. Rumors carried by media reports have
suggested Weinstein plans to close the case.
Media reports have said the
attorney general feels that despite the mountain of incriminating documents
against Liberman, the case has no real chance of a conviction, because most key
witnesses are abroad and have refused to come to Israel to testify.
These
rumors find support in the general rule that the longer the prosecutor takes to
decide what to with a case, the more likely it is that the prosecution has
serious concerns about the case’s viability. If a case is an easy conviction,
there is no reason for delay.
Also, Netanyahu’s union with Liberman
convinced many that the case would be closed. But some of the allegations
against Liberman are only four years old, or even more recent, not the 10 that
Danino suggested.
Additionally, his predecessor in the police pushed hard
to file this case against Liberman.
Next, Danino seemed to have a
different view about the cases against former prime minister Ehud
Olmert.
The main difference was that the prosecution did not hesitate
very long in bringing the Olmert cases once it received evidence and that, at
this point, Olmert has been convicted in one case. Still, it was striking that
Danino made such different public comments about legal matters involving
politicians in two camps.
Maybe his comments were not political and he
was just providing some additional support for Weinstein – presuming the
attorney general announces the closing the Liberman case in about two
weeks.
Perhaps Danino genuinely believes all of the back and forth over
the Liberman case has damaged law enforcement efforts to rein in corruption, and
decided that the unusual step of a public stance was
necessary.
Certainly, many have argued that dragging out the Liberman
case was in itself a political attempt to politically smear him over an extended
period.
Whatever Weinstein decides, assuming he does so soon, Danino’s
statement is likely to spark debate about what is appropriate for law
enforcement officials to say about a case that is still undecided, as much, as
it will about whether his statement was correct.
And his statement
certainly does not help those trying to convince Weinstein to indict Liberman.