JERUSALEM // Police investigators began questioning Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday on suspicion of receiving gifts from businessmen in breach of his role as a public servant, Israeli media said.
The move was authorised by the attorney general Avichai Mandelblit, who decided after a preliminary inquiry that there was enough evidence to open a criminal investigation, Haaretz newspaper reported.
Israeli media said the questioning of Mr Netanyahu by senior police investigators at his official residence in Jerusalem was expected last several hours and would almost certainly be followed by more interrogation.
Before he was questioned Mr Netanyahu told his ruling Likud faction in parliament that those hoping for his downfall would have to “wait with the celebrations, don’t rush. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it once again: there will be nothing because there is nothing”.
Photographers were camped outside the heavily guarded residence, hoping to get pictures of investigators arriving. Black screens were erected inside the gates of the property to block the view.
Haaretz and other newspapers said the investigation related to gifts worth "hundreds of thousands of shekels" given to Mr Netanyahu by Israeli and foreign businessmen.
Channel 2, a commercial network, said the investigation was one of two cases now open against the prime minister, although it said details of the second remained unclear.
Mr Netanyahu, 67, is in his fourth term as prime minister and heads what is seen as the most right-wing government in Israeli history.
He and his wife, Sara, have weathered several scandals over the years, including investigations into the misuse of state funds and an audit of the family’s spending on everything from laundry to ice cream. They have denied any wrongdoing.
Police have carried out the current inquiry in secret over the course of about eight months and recently arrived at an important breakthrough, Israeli media reported. Some 50 witnesses are said to have been questioned.
In July, the attorney general said he had ordered a preliminary examination into an unspecified affair involving Mr Netanyahu, with no details given.
The US billionaire and World Jewish Congress president Ronald Lauder has been among those questioned in the probe over gifts he allegedly gave Mr Netanyahu and alleged spending on trips for him, reports said.
Mr Lauder, whose family founded the Estee Lauder cosmetics giant, has long been seen as an ally of Mr Netanyahu, who in the late 1990s put him in charge of negotiating with then Syrian president Hafez Al Assad.
Mr 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 (Dh1.1 billion) involving the trade of carbon emissions permits and the taxes on them.
Mr Netanyahu’s office said he had received US$40,000 (Dh147,000) 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.
Beyond those issues, Israel’s state comptroller released a critical report in May about Mr Netanyahu’s foreign trips, some with his wife and children, between 2003 and 2005 when he was finance minister.
Mr Netanyahu is not the first prime minister to be questioned in a criminal case.
Ehud Olmert, who held office from 2006 to 2009, is serving 18 months in prison after being convicted of breach of trust and bribery in 2014.
Former prime minister Ariel Sharon was questioned while in office in 2003 and 2004 over allegations of bribery and corruption involving him and his two sons. In 2006, his son Omri was convicted of corruption and served time in prison.
* Reuters and Agence France-Presse
