Coalition Chairman David Bitan (Likud) said the newest charge against Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's wife Sara is an attempt by a Keshet Media Group employee to slander Sara for political reasons.
"This is a fictional story," Bitan told Channel 10. "The accusation is a lie. There is a method here. It's not a coincidence that this woman is represented by the same lawyer who represented Manny Naftali."
"There was hardly any interaction between this woman and the Netanyahus. Maybe she saw them for an hour and a half each day. She worked in the Prime Minister's residence for only a month, during which the PM and his wife spent nearly two weeks in South America."
On Thursday, a 24-year-old haredi woman on Thursday filed a civil suit against Sara Netanyahu, claiming Sara abused her when she worked in the Prime Minister's residence as a cleaning woman. The woman claimed Sara Netanyahu abused her "every day, every hour" for an "entire month."
However, out of the month she was employed, the Prime Minister and his wife spent ten days in South America. "Of the other days, there were Shabbats (Sabbaths, when no cleaners work at the residence), Rosh Hashanah (the Jewish New Year), the day preceding Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement) and Yom Kippur itself. On all of these days, the woman did not work in the Prime Minister's residence. Of those days that are left, there are only a few days in which she could have seen Sara Netanyahu. The amount of time this woman spent with Sara Netanyahu is much shorter than what she wrote in her suit," a statement from the Netanyahu family pointed out.
Sara Netanyahu was indicted on September 8 for fraudulent acquisition, fraud, and breach of public trust, and charged with using 360,000 shekels of government money for trays of prepared food.
The Netanyahu family said that the steep increase in meal expenses at the Prime Minister's Residence “was caused by offenses committed by the problematic house manager Manny Naftali, a state witness and a serial liar. The average monthly expenditure on meals during the period in which Naftali served as house manager is five times higher than the monthly average in the four years which followed, when Naftali did not work there. That says it all."