Former Labor Party MK and former defense minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer was questioned under caution for two hours by police investigators on Wednesday after months in which the investigation had been largely put on hold because of Ben-Eliezer’s health problems.The National Fraud Squad’s case against Ben-Eliezer deals with suspicions of wrongdoing surrounding his purchase of a multimillion shekel house in Jaffa, which police suspect was bought largely with illegally acquired funds.Other allegations in the case include that Ben-Eliezer received hundreds of thousands of shekels in bribes from a real estate developer to help lobby on his behalf with Egyptian officials he was close to, in order to help advance a project the man was planning in the country. He is also suspected of receiving around $400,000 from oil magnate Avraham Nanikashvili as payment for helping him during a tax probe.The investigation against Ben-Eliezer was put on hold while he underwent bypass surgery a few months ago. The case against Ben-Eliezer first broke shortly before Israel’s presidential elections in June. Ben-Eliezer was expected to be a strong contender, but the investigation scuttled his campaign.
