Netanyahu to PID: Probe police for threats about stocks case

Police had counterattacked Netanyahu for blasting law enforcement

By YONAH JEREMY BOB
Benjamin Netanyahu (photo credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM/THE JERUSALEM POST)
Benjamin Netanyahu
(photo credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM/THE JERUSALEM POST)
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s lawyers on Wednesday filed a complaint to the Police Investigations Department seeking a probe to out and penalize whichever police authorities issued a threat against him on Monday night relating to a possible investigation into Netanyahu failing to report certain gains in stocks in the past.
Responding to a withering attack by Netanyahu on law enforcement on Sunday right before his public corruption trial opened, Channel 12 reported Monday night that police sources issued a veiled threat about new impending interrogations of Netanyahu regarding the stocks matter.
While the police may portray this as just stating the obvious since there is a probe of Netanyahu on the issue, the prime minister is trying to portray the incident as the police seeking to blackmail him and politicize the investigation process using the media as a microphone.
In March 2019, Attorney-General Avichai Mandelblit’s Office confirmed that it opened an initial review of a possible new connection between Netanyahu and the Submarine Affair.
The Submarine Affair, or Case 3000, involves allegations that top government and defense officials abused their power to skim off large sums of money from transactions between Israel and the German company Thyssenkrupp for the purchase of nuclear submarines.
In November 2018, the police concluded their years-long investigation of the Submarine Affair recommending bribery indictments against several of the prime minister’s close associates, but without ever having treated Netanyahu himself as a suspect.
However, in February 2019, the State Comptroller indirectly revealed a new potential piece to Case 3000 that the police had not investigated.
In explaining its decision to reject Netanyahu’s request to finance his legal defense of public corruption charges from donations from his cousin and tycoon Natan Milikowsky, the comptroller disclosed that the prime minister and Milikowsky had joint business interests up until 2009, including Netanyahu’s early months as prime minister.
The comptroller also connected Milikowsky indirectly to Thyssenkrupp and to David Shimron, one of the primary suspects in Case 3000 and Netanyahu’s cousin and former top aide.
When Netanyahu purchased 1.7% of the shares in the company NMDM in 2007 for around $600,000, it was a supplier for the German company Thyssenkrupp, which later sold Israel and Egypt submarines.
At some point, NMDM merged with Graftech International, and in 2010, Netanyahu sold his shares to Milikowsky for around $4,300,000.
This was more than a year after he became prime minister.
In July 2014, the Defense Ministry opened bidding for offering submarines to Israel. Reportedly, a representative for the prime minister tried to push the defense ministry to choose Thyssenkrupp one week later.
Sometime in 2014-2015, Netanyahu also told German officials that Israel would remove its longstanding opposition to the Germans selling submarines to Egypt.
Netanyahu kept the defense ministry and the IDF in the dark about aspects of purchasing the submarines and about removing opposition to Germany’s sale of submarines to Egypt.
The potential claim is that the $4,300,000 Netanyahu profited came due to the prime minister’s interventions to promote the submarine sales between Israel and Germany.
However, since March 2019, almost nothing has been heard from Mandelblit about the probe.