Tel-Chai Nation

Haim Shine wrote about Benny Gantz and company's tiresome attempt to regurgitate old allegations against Benjamin Netanyahu, even though they're flaccid:

People had high hopes for Case 3,000. They were convinced that if only Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu could somehow be linked to alleged corruption in the 2015 procurement of submarines they would be able to unseat him without having to get the approval of voters. The Israel Police, the State Attorney's Office and the mainstream media have all colluded to achieve an over-arching goal: to topple the Right.

Some were even convinced that young attorneys would one day look up to Attorney General Avichai Mendelblit and call him the "attorney general who brought down a prime minister." Israel Police investigators were already thinking about how they would tell their grandkids about the tricks they employed to end the Right's grip on power. Media personalities archived footage so that one day, when young interns asked them to tell them how they acted with courage against the forces of darkness, they would be able show them the clips.

To incriminate Netanyahu, they have worked tirelessly to create an assembly line of state's witnesses. Investigators identified the weakest links and applied insurmountable pressure that was very reminiscent of Soviet interrogation techniques from the gulag: threats, mold-infested cells, and arrests whose sole purpose was to make detainees buckle. They also employed carrots, by promising the world (and lenient sentencing) to those willing to incriminate others.

Courts have been highly critical of the police as of late for trying to force people to confess to crimes they have not committed. You would think that the investigators would heed the courts' advice, but it seems that these tactics are still very much present.

That's why it's time to do some modifications in the police system as well. Here's more about the alleged "witness" in the case who since retracted his testimony:

The key witness in the Case 3000 naval acquisitions corruption investigation, which has ensnared several close confidants of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, has asked to change parts of his testimony.

Miki Ganor, a former agent in Israel for the German shipbuilder ThyssenKrupp, signed an agreement with prosecutors in July 2017 to cooperate in the probe, which focused on the period he worked for the company between 2009 and 2017. He has admitted to bribing a string of senior officials in order to help secure contracts for ThyssenKrupp with Israel’s Defense Ministry.

Police believe Israeli officials were bribed to push a massive deal for military naval vessels worth hundreds of millions of dollars, in what some have called the largest suspected graft scandal in the country’s history.

But according to a statement by the Israel Police, Ganor visited the Lod headquarters of the police’s top anti-corruption unit, Lahav 433, on Tuesday evening and told investigators he wished to alter key parts of the testimony he gave in the case.

Ganor reportedly told police investigators, “I didn’t bribe anyone,” according to media reports not yet confirmed by police.

After making the unusual request, Ganor was immediately taken to the National Economic Crimes Unit, part of Lahav 433, where he was questioned under caution for suspected obstruction of justice.

He was arrested soon after, and was scheduled to be taken to the Rishon Lezion Magistrate’s Court on Wednesday morning for a remand hearing, but was taken to a hospital Tuesday night for an unspecified ailment.

Prosecutors are reportedly considering stripping him of his state’s witness status, a step that would remove his immunity from prosecution in the case.

Ganor may or may not be guilty of some other crime himself, but as this indicates, he may have been offered a plea bargain in exchange for trying to bring down Netanyahu in a trumped up case, and now, amazingly, Ganor's denied wrongdoing in the weak case. So it doesn't stand up well.

And that's why it's time for the police to stop pursuing accusations over something that doesn't hold up, all because they want to bring down a politician over his standings. Such conduct is not good for law enforcement, politics or democracy.

Labels: iran, islam, Israel, Knesset, Moonbattery, political corruption