Former Israel Police commissioner Roni Alsheich said Tuesday that he believes Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara should seek a plea deal with incoming prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the latter’s ongoing corruption trial.
“In the current situation, I would definitely recommend for [the trial] to end” with a plea deal, Alsheich said during an interview on Channel 12 news, while stressing that he was speaking as a private citizen.
“Our democracy is not yet ready to prosecute a sitting prime minister,” added Alsheich, who led the police during the investigations that led to the filing of indictments in three cases against Netanyahu. The ex-police chief argued that the country needed to get out of the “spiral” that has been dragging on for years.
Last year, plea bargain talks between Netanyahu’s lawyers and the Attorney General’s Office — led by then attorney general Avichai Mandelblit — intensified before falling apart days after they made headlines.
Earlier Tuesday, the prosecution in Netanyahu’s trial asked the Jerusalem District Court to have a key prosecution witness declared hostile after he harshly criticized prosecutors and police interrogators in his opening remarks.
The three-judge panel was considering the request, reports said.
David Sharan arrives to testify in the trial against former Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, at the District Court in Jerusalem on December 20, 2022. (Olivier Fitoussi/Flash90)
Alsheich defended the police’s treatment of Sharan during the Channel 12 interview, saying officers had a job to do.
“There are judges in Jerusalem and I trust them. If they find failures [in the investigation]they will address them in the verdict,” he said. “I know the people who led the investigation, and I heard them our meetings. Is it possible that there were mistakes? In every investigation there are mistakes. We’re human beings.”
Netanyahu tweeted his dismay afterward, writing, “Alsheich didn’t even apologize” over Sharan’s alleged mistreatment.
Sharan testified Tuesday that police investigators from the Lahav 433 unit “made sure that I would be fired from my previous place of employment so I would not be able to defend myself.”
“My rights have been trampled by that unit. They harassed me outside of court,” he added.
He continued: “My mother was rushed to the Lahav 433 headquarters. They foreclosed her bank account and she was forced to spend the weekend asking for money because for some reason they also decided to place my wife under house arrest. They told me: ‘If you want to see your wife, don’t have high expectations. We’ve got her now.’”
Then-police commissioner Roni Alsheich (left) and then-prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu at a welcoming ceremony for Alsheich at the start of his term, at the Prime Minister’s Office in Jerusalem, December 3, 2015. (Miriam Alster/Flash90)
Sharan was testifying in the so-called Case 4000, in which Netanyahu faces charges of bribery, fraud, and breach of trust.
Prosecutors in the case allege that Netanyahu, who was prime minister at the time, approved regulatory decisions benefiting controlling Bezeq shareholder Shaul Elovitch to the tune of hundreds of millions of shekels. In exchange, he is suspected of receiving positive media coverage from the Bezeq-owned Walla news site.
Netanyahu denies any wrongdoing and claims the charges were fabricated in a political coup led by the police and state prosecution.
He is also on trial in two other cases known as Case 1000 and Case 2000, in which he also denies wrongdoing.
