Police unlikely to investigate Rivlin

Police sources said that the allegations had already been checked in the past and that they had decided not to open an investigation.

President Reuven Rivlin.  (photo credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM/THE JERUSALEM POST)
President Reuven Rivlin.
(photo credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM/THE JERUSALEM POST)
Police said on Sunday that a probe into then-president elect Reuven Rivlin was finished before he was sworn in, and that the police and the attorney general found no reason to open a criminal investigation of the president.
“After he was elected, we received information that said he had received money years ago, we checked and found no wrong doing,” said spokesman for Lahav 433 – the National Crime Unit of the police.
Channel 2 reported Sunday night that Attorney-General Yehuda Weinstein authorized legal authorities to check whether Rivlin illegally received donations from a businessman who was jailed for bribery.
The report accused Rivlin of receiving monthly sums of thousands of shekels for an extended period of time some 10 years ago from David Appel, a real estate developer who was sentenced to threeand- a-half years in prison in July 2010.
Weinstein reportedly told police to check the matter without opening a formal criminal investigation.
Channel 2 quoted a source involved in the probe who said that the information checked was “not dramatic” and expressed doubt that it would lead to a criminal investigation.
A source close to Rivlin said his ties with Appel had been checked by two attorney-generals and the case against him was closed.
Appel was convicted of giving bribes to former Lod mayor Benny Regev, former head of the Givat Shmuel Regional Council Zamir Ben-Ari, and former senior Israel Lands Administration official Oded Tal.
Rivlin was elected June 10 after a race in which his opponents Binyamin Ben-Eliezer and Silvan Shalom faced criminal investigations.

Stay updated with the latest news!

Subscribe to The Jerusalem Post Newsletter


Yaakov Lappin and Ben Hartman contributed to this report.