Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman on Thursday criticized Police Commissioner Roni Alsheikh after he claimed in a television interview that “powerful forces” had collected information on police officers who were involved in files related to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu.
“Alsheikh should focus on eradicating crime and not on giving interviews to the media. People are being murdered here, and the police should deal with that,” Liberman told Kol Barama radio in an interview.
Meanwhile, senior police sources said on Thursday that Attorney General Avichai Mendelblit was briefed in real time by the police commissioner about the attempts that were made to collect information about senior officers who were involved in the Netanyahu investigation.
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu blasted Alsheikh after the interview with him aired on Wednesday, saying that his comments placed the commissioner's ability to objectively conduct the investigation in serious doubt.
"It is shocking to discover that the commissioner repeats his false suggestion that Prime Minister Netanyahu sent private investigators against police officers who are interrogating him," Netanyahu wrote on Facebook.
"It is also shocking to discover that he repeated to journalists the equally false insinuation as though the prime minister was involved in a police officer's complaint against [Lahav 433 Commander Roni] Ritman for sexual harassment. How could it be that Ritman heads the unit that investigates the prime minister and personally participates in formulating the recommendations against him?” added the prime minister.
"Every decent person will ask himself how people who say such delusional things about the prime minister can objectively investigate him and recommend his case without bias? The commissioner's hints are so serious that an immediate and objective investigation is required on the argument that the prime minister sent investigators - and once it becomes clear that there is no such connection, the necessary conclusions must be drawn about how to conduct the investigation and formulate recommendations against the prime minister,” he concluded.