Israeli Police Investigator Of PM Conducted Romantic Relationship With Netanyahu’s Foe

JERUSALEM (VINNews) — Israeli political commentator Amit Segal dropped a bombshell Monday night when he revealed that one of the main investigators of Prime Minister Netanyahu’s association with Yediot Aharonot publisher Noni Moses (Known as Case 2000), Superintendent Avi Rottenberg, was conducting a romantic affair with Moses’s sister and co-holder of shares in Yediot Aharonot, Judy Shalom-Nir-Moses. Rottenberg was also one of the investigators of Sara Netanyahu’s misuse of public funds at the prime minister’s residence in which she was found guilty in a 2019 plea bargain agreement.

The finding demonstrates that Rottenberg had a clear conflict of interests in both cases due to his relationship with Moses, who has often expressed scathing criticism of Sara Netanyahu in the past. However When Internal Investigations asked him if he had such a relationship, he denied it and said that he could participate in the investigations. Segal claimed that “for a year and a half, while he was consolidating the case against Sarah Netanyahu, Rottenberg wilfully hid from his superiors the romantic relationship and the conflict of interests he faced. Documents show that with the initial investigation of case 2000 in 2016, police officials considered whether to include Rottenberg in the investigation after rumors had surfaced about his relationship with the sister of the accused publisher.” Rottenberg however claimed to be living with his wife and said that he could participate in the investigation”.

A few months later police discovered that Rottenberg was lying, but despite the sensitive nature of the matter, the commander of the investigations team, Ronny Ritman, refused to report to Internal Investigations and it was only when Rottenberg’s wife threatened to go to the media over the issue that police reported the matter to Internal Investigations

The internal investigation revealed that “there is a suspicion that the suspect (Rottenberg) acted with a conflict of interests in investigating the wife of the prime minister and the prime minister, especially with regard to investigating Netanyahu’s allegedly forbidden association with Noni Moses (who allegedly offered Netanyahu favorable coverage in return for passing a law against a rival newspaper, Yisrael Hayom) who together with his sister controls the Yediot Aharonot newspaper. There is a lot of tension between the Moses family and Netanyahu’s family and it is almost certain that Rottenberg knew of the antipathy between the families in the wake of the Yisrael Hayom law.

“There are indications in the investigative materials that there was wilful concealment on Rottenberg’s part. He was aware of Mrs. Moses personal interest in the investigation and how it was conducted, due to her close relationship with her brother. The accused placed himself in direct conflict of interest. We believe that there is a need to investigate the issues for which the accused was responsible in the investigation of Moses and Netanyahu while he was conducting a romantic relationship with Mrs. Moses.”

Despite these clear signs of a criminal element in the investigation, the State Prosecutor did not see any reason to continue investigating the issue, “for obvious reasons.” Segal claims that these obvious reasons were the need to protect the investigation against Netanyahu in case 2000 which would have been compromised by such an investigation.

Segal’s revelations caused an uproar in Israeli politics with the prosecution angrily denying the allegations, claiming the report was “biased and taken out of context” since “as opposed to what was claimed, Rottenberg was not involved in the case 2000 investigation, the decisions in the case, like the rest of the cases involving the prime minister, were taken according to professional considerations alone of establishing the truth. The Internal Investigations probe about Rottenberg was also from professional considerations alone, and the decision to close it was due to a reasonable doubt of criminal activity.”

Judy Moses herself called the claims a “conspiracy theory.”

However there were numerous calls to close case 2000, with coalition leader Miki Zohar demanding that the attorney-general immediately close the case and strike off the indictment due to Segal’s revelations of conflict of interest.

Yemina leader Naftali Bennett also said that the report “shed a negative light on enforcement authorities” and said that the events must be “fully investigated, and faults should be dealt with.”