Baruch Marzel
Baruch MarzelHadas Parush/Flash 90

Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein on Thursday demanded answers from Maj. Gen. Mani Yitzhaki, head of the Police Investigations Department, as to why an indictment on a two-year-old case against Otzma Yehudit candidate Baruch Marzel was filed a week before elections.

Weinstein pressed Yitzhaki to explain what were the considerations that led to submitting the indictment on such an old case at such suspect timing given the proximity to elections, and who was the police source who decided to file the indictment, reports Walla!.

Police claimed on Wednesday that the indictment was filed "innocently," but admitted that the timing required an investigation. A check quickly revealed the decision had been made at the junior level of the police, indicating that the senior rank of police were in the dark about the move.

"If the senior leadership had known that an indictment would be submitted adjacent to the elections, certainly a decision like this would not have been made," a police source told the news site. "This is a decision that fell through the cracks, but it was all innocent."

Marzel responded to Weinstein's investigation into the suspicious indictment, writing on Facebook "even the attorney general understands that this is harassment against me."

"It won't help the left, in the coming Knesset I will be there and I will make order there!" vowed the Otzma Yehudit candidate, who is number four on the Yachad - Ha'am Itanu joint list.

The indictment deals with an incident in Marzel's hometown of Hevron from February 2013, in which he allegedly struck an Arab resident during a confrontation.

Marzel's lawyer, Attorney Itamar Ben-Gvir, wrote Weinstein on Wednesday seeking answers over the indictment that "stinks of election tampering."

"Why did they not wait with this?” Ben-Gvir asked Weinstein. “Was this such an important indictment that it could not wait a week, until after the elections? And if so, why was it not filed a year ago? Whoever decided on the timing of this has made a very strange decision."