PM’s chief lawyer Weinroth dies

Fate of corruption cases uncertain

Jacob Weinroth, chief lawyer for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the corruption probes against him, and possibly the country’s most storied lawyer, died from cancer on Tuesday. He was 71.

Weinroth’s death throws Netanyahu’s defense into uncertainty, both because of his unique skills, his relationships with judges and top officials like Attorney-General Avichai Mandelblit and because he had shepherded the prime minister’s defense from the beginning.

Though Weinroth headed a team of other top lawyers, including his junior partner Amit Hadad, most of them quit the case to defend related clients. Hadad, while a rising star, may be viewed as too young to be the case’s lead lawyer.

While Weinroth had been sick for an extended period and appeared visibly frail in interviews he gave on the prime minister’s behalf over the past year, there had been no indication that his death was imminent.

He was supposed to start a trial representing Sara

by Peretz that she had voted Likud all her life and would no longer do so.

“You don’t bore me at all, of course,” Gabbay told her. “We listen to you. Wherever I go, I listen to people, especially on such things.”

Likud MKs and a minister who asked not to be named said that the prime minister had made a mistake that could harm him and the Likud politically, and that he should have been more sensitive.

“What is happening here is that we are laughed at in the face,” Peretz said in a radio interview shortly after the incident. “The streets are neglected. There is plenty of corruption and gangs. There is no budget.”

Peretz said that she was immediately silenced and bullied by the prime ministers’ associates after her comments, and was showered with degrading curses.

“Where is the democracy that he prided himself with yesterday on the Knesset podium?,” the frustrated Peretz complained.

Insisting that she is a huge Netanyahu

supporter, she nevertheless lamented the situation in her hometown, especially the fact that the emergency room at the local hospital was closed five-anda-half years ago, and that proper medical treatment is far away.

Sources close to Netanyahu said that the prime minister does not usually react to hecklers, but was personally offended when the woman interrupted even when he wished to eulogize his friend Weinroth. They said he would not call Peretz or apologize beyond what he posted on Twitter several hours after the incident.

“This morning, a political activist interrupted my speech at the inauguration of a medical center in Kiryat Shmona,” Netanyahu wrote. “It happened hours after I was told of the death of my soul mate, attorney Jacob Weinroth. I am used to criticism, and I have no problem with heckling. It has happened to me thousands of times in my life. But today, in the depth of my pain, I felt it was simply inappropriate.”

Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid also had an experience with a heckler Tuesday at a conference of the Anti-Defamation League.

“I understand older people who shout,” Lapid told the heckler. “I want to speak to the young people here.” •