A-G backs probe of 5th Dimension, explains timing of Netanyahu indictment

Attorney-General Avichai Mandelblit calls focus on Harpaz Affair political.

By YONAH JEREMY BOB
ATTORNEY-GENERAL Avichai Mandelblit has been one of the main players, along with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Blue and White leader Benny Gantz and Yisrael Beytenu leader Avigdor Liberman, in the current political stalemate. (photo credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM/THE JERUSALEM POST)
ATTORNEY-GENERAL Avichai Mandelblit has been one of the main players, along with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Blue and White leader Benny Gantz and Yisrael Beytenu leader Avigdor Liberman, in the current political stalemate.
(photo credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM/THE JERUSALEM POST)
Attorney-General Avichai Mandelblit on Monday defended acting State Attorney Dan Eldad's sudden decision last week to open a full criminal probe into the case of a company once led by Blue and White leader Benny Gantz, known as the "Fifth Dimension Affair."
Mandelblit, speaking from the Besheva Conference, also for the first time explained his thinking behind the timing of key decisions he made regarding Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's indictment.
Last week, Eldad surprised many by opening a full criminal probe into the affair despite having only been exposed to the evidentiary materials involved for two weeks.
Since his decision, many on the Left and some media commentators have said that Eldad jumped the gun in order to harm Gantz before the March 2 election date. (Gantz is not a suspect, but was in charge of Fifth Dimension until it went bankrupt.)
Eldad is already suspected by the Left because his appointment was rammed through by acting Justice Minister Amir Ohana over the objections of Mandelblit himself, and many said that a new state attorney would usually take months to study such a complex, high-profile case.
Ironically, though Mandelblit opposed Eldad's appointment, saying he was unfit for the post, the attorney-general said on Monday that he supported Eldad's decision regarding the Fifth Dimension Affair as not being impacted by politics.
According to Mandelblit, it was true that he might not have opened the criminal probe as fast as Eldad, but that Eldad got his approval for opening the probe before the decision was announced and that part of the basis for the decision was the fact that Gantz himself was cleared as not being a suspect.
Mandelblit also dismissed any suggestion that the timing of his decisions in indicting Netanyahu were political to hurt the prime minister in the recent two and impending third elections.
He said that the initial indictment decision in February 2019 was planned before early elections were announced by Netanyahu.
Next, he said that the final indictment decision on November 21 was specifically held off to come only after Gantz no longer had a mandate to form a government so that no one could attack the decision as being pro-Gantz.
Finally, he said that the January 28 date on which Netanyahu's indictment was filed in court was determined by the prime minister himself.
He said that Netanyahu had requested immunity, which delayed the indictment being filed on November 21.
Moreover, he said that Netanyahu decided that January 28 would be the day he withdrew his immunity request, which led to the indictment being filed that day.
Finally, Mandelblit dismissed recent interest in unveiling certain 2010 telephone conversations he had with then-IDF chief-of-staff Gabi Ashkenazi relating to the Harpaz Affair as problematic attempts to undermine him and the country's rule of law.
Mandelblit said that he had taken no personal position regarding unveiling the conversations, but that the Supreme Court had rejected the request.
He added that an expanded five-justice panel of the Supreme Court had endorsed his fitness for being attorney-general, as well as closing any charges against him connected to the Harpaz Affair as totally groundless.
At the time in 2010, Mandelblit and current top Blue and White MK Ashkenazi were serving as the IDF's chief lawyer and IDF chief-of-staff respectively and were dealing with how to handle a document forged by a third party, Lt. Col. (ret.) Boaz Harpaz, in a battle between Ashkenazi and then-defense minister Ehud Barak over key decisions, including who would succeed Ashkenazi.
The attorney-general also took swipes at media personality Boaz Golan and at Ohana for violating gag orders.
Golan read portions of the Ashkenazi-Mandelblit transcripts which are under gag order out-loud at a "Leumiada" conference, while Ohana violated a gag order on details related to Nir Hefetz, a key state's witness in the public corruption cases against Netanyahu. Ohana has also called for ignoring Mandelblit's decisions or even court decisions in some instances, though he has sometimes walked back some of his more provocative comments.
Meanwhile, on Tuesday Ohana, speaking at the same conference, slammed former state attorney Moshe Lador and any other critics of Eldad within the state prosecution office.
"Who asked them? Tell me, is this someone's private courtyard?...A person who has been in the state prosecution for almost 30 years and recently at the senior level...this is someone who I brought from the outside?...You know what bothers them? That he isn't from the click, that he isn't from the insider club. But this is not a private courtyard. We are talking about the arena of public service," said Ohana.