Officials at the Prime Minister's Office are reportedly commencing preliminary investigations regarding whether ousted premier Benjamin Netanyahu ordered staffers to destroy certain documents prior to the entry of his successor, Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, into office.
Haaretz reported that while the initial investigation will likely take the form of an informal probe, the possibility of a thorough inquiry, overseen by an external body such as the Defense Ministry or the Shin Bet domestic Security Agency, remains open.
In the same newspaper report, allegations surfaced that at the behest of the Likud leader, aides in the PMO destroyed numerous documents that had been stored in safes located at the office where Netanyahu and other top officials had desks.
Netanyahu's Likud faction denied the shredding allegations as "totally false" adding that not only were the claims absurd but all the documents had been digitally preserved.
Yaakov Lozowick, who was the state’s chief archivist from 2011 to 2018, told Army Radio Friday that if any materials were indeed shredded, it is possible they were not backed up digitally.
“If they are shredding documents in the prime minister’s bureau, it would seem it’s not information that other people have, so it stands to reason that we’re talking about the most sensitive materials,” he said.
The incoming head of the Knesset’s Constitution Law and Justice Committee, Labor MK Gilad Kariv, called on Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit to open an investigation of his own.
Article republished with permission from i24NEWS