From Bottle-gate to Grocery-gate: Former neighbor of Meni Nafali’s in-laws issues police complaint

Attorney for neighbor tells 'Post' his client is not a Likud or Bibi supporter, just a concerned citizen who only realized who Naftali was after seeing him on TV this week.

By BEN HARTMAN
Supermarket. (photo credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM/THE JERUSALEM POST)
Supermarket.
(photo credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM/THE JERUSALEM POST)
A neighbor of Meni Naftali’s in-laws issued a police complaint on Monday against the former manager of the Prime Minister’s Residence, alleging possible theft from the workplace by Naftali.
According to the sworn statement given to the Afula Police on Monday, the neighbor said that nearly every Thursday or Friday between June 2009 and February 2012, he saw Naftali take cases of sealed and opened groceries to his in-laws, who lived in two separate apartments in the same building as the complainant.
The neighbor told police that he would stand at his window each week and watch Naftali take between five and seven cases by hand up to the two apartments. He said that most of the goods appeared to be groceries and cleaning supplies, many of them unopened.
The complainant’s attorney, Efraim Damari, said that he and his client were on the way to the Lahav 433 headquarters in Lod, to give testimony to police about Naftali.
When asked about the timing of the complaint, and why his client only came forward now, years after the alleged wrongdoing and only days after Naftali began testifying to police, he said: “My client only realized who Naftali was when he started seeing him on TV this week. He had no idea who he was before then. He decided to come forward as a good citizen, out of his concern that someone may be harming the public interest.”
Damari said that his client is neither a supporter of the Likud nor Netanyahu and that no one pushed him to issue a complaint.
“He’s a ma’arachnik,” Damari said, using the name for “the Alignment,” an earlier incarnation of the Labor Party.
News of the police complaint broke shortly after Naftali arrived in Lod to give further testimony, this time about death threats he and his attorneys said he had received in recent days.
Police said that the testimony does not include further information about the management of the Prime Minister’s Residence.
On Sunday, Naftali and his attorneys sent a letter to police asking for protection, saying that he had been subject to a series of threats – including one by a Facebook user who said that “we’ll behead you like ISIS” – if he didn’t drop the complaints against the Netanyahu family.
Israel Police Insp.-Gen. Yohanan Danino said that Naftali’s evidence and testimony, given over 12 hours of questioning on Thursday night, appeared to justify opening a criminal investigation into the allegations.