Four Likud-linked figures, including a former lawmaker and the head of the party’s appeals court, were questioned Monday on suspicion of concealing real estate rights and transferring assets worth millions of shekels.
The suspects are contractor and longtime Likud activist Dudi Appel; attorney Michael Kleiner, a former Knesset member who serves as president of the Likud Court of Appeals; and businesspeople Yaffa Dayan and Yitzhak Dayan.
The four were detained for questioning Monday morning at the offices of Lahav 433’s National Unit for Economic Crime Investigations, known by its Hebrew acronym YALAC. The investigation is being conducted jointly with the official responsible for insolvency and economic rehabilitation proceedings.
Police suspect the four were involved in concealing rights to real estate and transferring assets to prevent authorities from reaching them.
Appel, who has been in insolvency proceedings since 2012 over debts totaling tens of millions of shekels, is suspected of hiding his rights to several properties worth tens of millions of shekels and transferring assets under his control while the proceedings were underway.
Investigators suspect that he thereby violated his obligation to disclose and report his assets as part of the insolvency process.
Appel was filmed by a ynet team as he left the Lahav 433 offices following questioning.
“Did you come to help those crooks, those criminals?” he told a ynet photographer.
“There is a group of crooks, fraudsters and thieves who want to take money from a person twice, slaughter him, and think they can silence him that way,” Appel said.
“Not only can they not silence him, they will pay a heavy price for it. This time I will not leave those crooks alone. That’s all. Thieves, crooks, criminals. That’s all. Thank you very much.”
Police officials said evidence collected in the investigation indicated that the suspects had acted “in a sophisticated and systematic manner” to conceal their rights from the authorities and obtain large sums of money.
Attorney Michael Kleiner
(Photo: Moti Kimchi)
After the investigation became public and the suspects were questioned, police seized substantial property that could later be subject to forfeiture as part of the legal proceedings.
All four were released to their homes after several hours. The investigation remains ongoing.
Appel previously served a prison sentence after being convicted of bribery offenses.
He was also a prominent Likud power broker in the late 1980s. Ahead of the 1988 election, he was considered one of the architects of an agreement between the camp of senior Likud figure David Levy and Benjamin Netanyahu, who was then beginning his political career in the party.
Netanyahu was placed ninth on Likud’s slate, entered the Knesset and was later appointed deputy foreign minister under Levy.
Appel’s attorney, Efraim Damari, said the allegations concerned an old case that had already been investigated about 14 years ago.
“My client finds it difficult to understand why the enforcement authorities have chosen to revisit the same events and pursue him after the proceedings in his case were exhausted,” Damari said.
Attorneys Uri Korb and Sivan Russo, who represent Yaffa and Yitzhak Dayan, also rejected the allegations.
“Yaffa and Yitzhak are law-abiding citizens and respected businesspeople whose conduct is beyond reproach,” they said.
“This investigation concerns events that took place more than a decade ago and has been underway for several years without findings and without even preliminary evidence indicating suspicion of any improper act, and not without reason.”