Alsheich takes blame for omitting Netanyahu’s name from report

After a media and public outcry, the police privately revealed that they had recommended indicting Netanyahu.

By YONAH JEREMY BOB
Updated: JUNE 1, 2016 08:57
Sara Netanyahu at the Jerusalem Labor Court, May 10, 2015 (photo credit: AVIRAM ZINO)
Sara Netanyahu at the Jerusalem Labor Court, May 10, 2015
(photo credit: AVIRAM ZINO)
Police Commissioner Roni Alsheich and Attorney-General Avichai Mandelblit made an effort Tuesday to contain the fallout from a number of inaccuracies that were found in the Israel Police announcement that it recommends indicting Sara Netanyahu in what is known as the “Prime Minister’s Residence Affair.”
On Sunday, the police recommended indicting Sarah Netanyahu for three separate issues in the affair, but their initial public statement bizarrely left out those key details, noting only that they had sent all evidence to the prosecution.
After a media and public outcry, the police privately revealed that they had recommended indicting Netanyahu.
In a Tuesday joint statement, the two top officials said that “efforts to try to put a wedge between the police commissioner and the attorney-general constitute attempts to harm the rule of law.”
They added that discussions between them “are direct, productive with mutual respect and with full understanding of the division of responsibility between the different arms” of law enforcement.
The statement explicitly reveals for the first time that Alsheich personally made the call to eliminate the names, charges and police’s conclusions regarding Netanyahu and the other suspects from the announcement.
It said that he wanted to avoid turning a “professional-legal issue into a public debate.”
The statement was issued following a Tuesday meeting between Mandelblit and Alsheich and after days of mutual condemning by their spokespeople, each blaming the other side for the confusion.