Report: Sub affair suspect's attorney advising Netanyahu
Channel 10 claims Jacque Chen, an attorney representing Avriel Bar Yosef in sub affair, and Shaul Elovitch in Bezeq investigation, secretly providing counsel to PM; Chen denies wrongdoing.
A law-enforcement official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that while counsel provided by the attorney, Jacque Chen, may not be illegal, it raises suspicion.
“Maybe there is no legal prevention on this but it doesn't smell good,” the official said.
Responding to the reports, Chen categorically denied that his joining of Netanyahu’s legal team had anything to do with either case.
“I joined the team of attorneys headed by Dr. Weinroth at the prime minister’s behest. The claim that this has something to do with the Bezq case and the vessels case is patently false,” Chen said in a statement. “The prime minister is not a suspect in either of these cases.”
It was not immediately clear whether the State Attorney’s Office will view the matter as a conflict of interest.
The Prime Minister’s Office later responded to the report. “In one consultation with his attorney the prime minister turned to Jacques Chen and asked him if he would assist in providing advice to the legal team in that was being led by Dr. Jacob Weinroth,” the statement said.
“Therefore, the publication of the issue of representation to the attorney general and the cases in which the prime minister is not a suspect is fundamentally false.”
Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit was himself helped by Chen, who advised him when he was being investigated in the Harpaz affair, involving a document penned by Boaz Harpaz, a close associate of former IDF chief of staff Gabi Ashkenazi, which claimed that Yoav Gallant was intending to besmirch Ashkenazi’s name in a bid to replace him.
The Israel Police and the State Attorney's Office convened Monday morning to discuss having former PMO chief of staff David Sharan and former minister Eliezer (Moodi) Sandberg dismissed from their senior public positions in light of the serious suspicions against them in the submarine affair, also known as Case 3000.
Sharan serves as the secretary general of the Eilat Ashkelon Pipeline Company, and Sandberg serves as the chairman of Keren haYesod (United Israel Appeal).
