Bayit Yehudi chairman Naftali Bennett on Friday came to the defense of his
political competitors, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Yisrael Beytenu
chairman Avigdor Liberman, slamming recent legal moves against each as
politically motivated.
Speaking at a Ramat Gan event, Bennett criticized
both the attorney-general’s decision to indict Liberman and the state
comptroller’s decision to issue his draft report on Netanyahu’s “Bibi-Tours
Affair” just weeks before the general election.
“Theoretically it helps
us because it hurts our rivals, but this is not acceptable. How is it
that they’re investigating Liberman for 12 years and it pops up suddenly just
before the elections?” he asked.
“And how is it that the Bibi-Tours
Affair is sitting with the state comptroller for such a long time and exactly
three-and-a-half weeks before the elections they found the need to distribute
it? It wasn’t possible to wait until a week after the elections?” he
continued.
Attorney-General Yehuda Weinstein presented the Knesset with
an updated and somewhat more serious indictment for fraud and breach of public
trust on Thursday against Liberman regarding the Belarus Ambassador
Affair.
Weinstein will file the final indictment with the Jerusalem
Magistrate’s Court on Sunday.
Also on Thursday, Channel 2 reported that
State Comptroller Joseph Shapira sent Netanyahu a draft of his report regarding
the Bibi-Tours Affair.