"ALL CAPS IN DEFENSE OF LIBERTY IS NO VICE."

Thursday, July 11, 2019

The failed indictments against Lieberman

The Times of Israel has a long article about attempts to investigate and prosecute Avigdor Lieberman in the past for potentially corrupt activities, allegedly because of shady figures doing surveillance against legal officials:
One autumn day in 2010, Avia Alef, then head of the economic crimes department in the Israeli state prosecutor’s office, met a friend for lunch at the elegant Zuni restaurant in central Jerusalem. Alef and her friend found a quiet table on the second floor of the restaurant where they could talk. A few minutes later, a steely-gazed man with Slavic features sat down a few tables away, ordered only coffee and began watching them intently. When Alef and her friend left the restaurant, the man got up and left as well.

“Are you being followed?” Alef’s friend asked her. “I think so,” she answered, trying to calm the somersaults in her stomach.

Alef, who had at that point served as a government prosecutor for over 20 years, had come to expect such ominous intrusions into her privacy. They had started when she began investigating alleged financial improprieties connected to Moldova-born lawmaker and Yisrael Beytenu party head Avigdor Liberman.

“We were harassed, followed, surveilled and had our work obstructed on a regular basis,” Alef, who was involved in investigating Liberman from 2005 to 2012, told The Times of Israel.

In fact, all of the police officers and prosecutors working on the case experienced similar and other troubling incidents, Alef said. Police would go question a witness, only to learn that Liberman or one of his representatives had reached him first and coordinated or tried to coordinate testimonies. When prosecutors sent a request for judicial assistance to the government of Belarus, the Israeli ambassador there opened the diplomatic mail pouch and instead of passing on the request, informed Liberman of the letter’s contents.
Read the rest of the article, because what's told is very disturbing and alarming, how justice may have been obstructed for the sake of a pretentious man who's not the altruistic figure he'd like everyone to think he is.

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