Netanyahu faces graft probe

JERUSALEM. — Israeli police were expected to question Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu yesterday over whether he illegally accepted gifts from wealthy supporters, media reports said, in a probe shaking the country’s political scene.

The long-running inquiry has looked into whether Israeli and foreign businessmen have offered gifts worth tens of thousands of dollars as well as another unspecified issue, according to the reports.

Attorney-General Avichai Mandelblit has reportedly decided to upgrade the inquiry to a criminal probe.

Police and Netanyahu’s office declined to comment.

Public radio said Netanyahu has agreed to be questioned at his residence. It was not clear when it would occur.

Screens were mounted at the entrance to the compound in central Jerusalem in an apparent bid to shield the investigators’ arrival.

In a Facebook post at the weekend, Netanyahu rejected all allegations against him and said his political opponents and some news outlets wanted to bring down his government.

Police have carried out the inquiry in secret over the course of some eight months and recently arrived at an important breakthrough, reports said.

Some 50 witnesses are said to have been questioned.

In July, Mandelblit said he had ordered a preliminary examination into an unspecified affair involving Netanyahu, with no details given.

US billionaire and World Jewish Congress president Ronald Lauder has been among those questioned in the probe over gifts he allegedly gave Netanyahu and alleged spending on trips for him, Israeli media reported.

Lauder, whose family founded the Estee Lauder cosmetics giant, has long been seen as an ally of Netanyahu, who in the late 1990s put him in charge of negotiating with then Syrian president Hafez al-Assad.

Netanyahu has acknowledged receiving money from French tycoon Arnaud Mimran, who was sentenced to eight years in prison over a scam amounting to 283 million involving the trade of carbon emissions permits and the taxes on them.

Netanyahu’s office said he had received $40 000 in contributions from Mimran in 2001, when he was not in office, as part of a fund for public activities, including appearances abroad to promote Israel.

He has also come under scrutiny over an alleged conflict of interest in the purchase of submarines from a German firm.

Media reports have alleged a conflict of interest over the role played by the Netanyahu family lawyer, David Shimron, who also acts for the Israeli agent of Germany’s ThyssenKrupp, which builds the Dolphin submarines.