Roni Alsheikh
Police chief defends secret document detailing MK corruption
Knesset committee discusses the secret document containing transgressions committed by all MKs since 2014; Alsheikh: 'It is being presented as the opposite of what it is. There is no pressure to release its content.'
Israel's Police Commissioner Roni Alsheikh defended
the existence of the controversial ‘Yitzhaki document’ - a secret police document containing information and details of suspected criminal activitity by those who were members of the Knesset in 2014 on Wednesday .
Alsheikh told the Knesset's Interior Comittee that he stood by the decision to compile the document. “It is being presented as the opposite of what it actually is," he said.
"Compiling the document is not a crime. The crime here is the leaking of the document. Whoever leaked it wanted to create the impression that the police are collecting information about public servants and are just waiting to release it,” he contended.
Alsheikh rebuffed the notion that the police have been under pressure to expose its contents ever since the document’s existence was brought topublic light: “In order to remove any doubt, there is no pressure on us from politicians. There never was. However, we are indeed pressured by the media.”
He then explained that the document was created to a way of organizing the information the police had received, and that there was no intention to hold onto incriminating information and wait for the opportune moment to use it.
Roni Alsheikh (l) and Menny Yitzhaki (r) (Photo: Yoav Dudkevitz)
“The police are not allowed to seek out information about MKs and ministers. The police need to be aware of the limitations of its powers and rightly so,” said Alsheikh.
However, he maintainedin his defense of the document’s existence: “Mountains of information comes in, including about MKs. When credible information comes, when it is not clouded or blurry but rather something substantive, we cannot simply launch an initial invesigation. We take this information to the State Attorney and the Attorney General so that they can make the decision. Because we have a massive police force consisting of 30,000 policemen and 70 police stations, obviously there are things that can fall between the cracks.”
Alsheikh emphasized that “the aim of the document is precisely the opposite of collecting information about MKs. It is intended to ensure that this doesn’t happen. There is a control process which ensures that the head of the investigations branch can control what is happening underneath him. In light of the incidents which took place in the past, an inspection was conducted to make sure that nothing has gone unreported. When there is a commander who doesn’t want problems, he carries out an inspection. The moment that the document go to the Police Investigations division, the document died.”
At the beginning of the meeting, MK Michal Rozin (Meretz) said, “According to our knowledge, there are around 100 cases. These cases were not checked or investigated.” MK Mickey Rosenthal (Zionist Union) turned to Alsheikh and to Maj. Gen. Menny Yitzchaki and said: “None of you understand the severity of the situation. You are holding the public security minister by the balls.”
The document was exposed a few weeks ago by a journalist on channel 10. It was prepared two years ago at the direction of the intelligence branch of the police and included information on suspicion of criminal activities committed by all MKs and ministers in the previous Knesset. It was created at the request of Menny Yitzhaki.
The document accumulated all the information under police control obtained from every possible source and included information relating to alleged transgressions by MKs which included bribery. The journalist who exposed the document’s existence claimed that it contained the names of supposed witnesses but the information never materialized into a serious investigation.
According to an earlier report published by Yedioth Ahronoth, the morning following Gilad Erdan’s nomination of Brig. Gen. (res.) Gal Hirsch to the position of police commissioner, Yitzhaki requested that all information held by the police about him be publicized, some of which led to the termination of his appointment.
