Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit addressed the controversy over his deputy, Dina Zilber this evening in a speech at Haifa University's Haifa Law Conference.
"There are those who want to take what happened and leverage this to harm the institution of the Attorney General - and I will uproot that," Mandelblit said.
He referred to Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked's demand that Zilber not come to represent the Justice Ministry in the Knesset. "The responsibility for my team is mine alone and I will not get to be told who will come to represent one ministry or another. Insofar as there are claims regarding statements made on behalf of the attorney general, they should be addressed to me, and not to those under my supervision, and I will take care, if I see fit to clarify the details."
Mandelblit also spoke about the police recommendations in the submarine affair. "This is a serious affair, difficult and serious - we had to investigate it to the fullest and it's good that they did it."
When addressing other investigations in which the prime minister's name has been associated, the attorney general said that he is aware that the public has a clear interest in knowing as quickly as possible what is happening with the investigations, but there is also an equally important interest in carrying out the investigations with the utmost professionalism. "The investigations are in the final stages," he said.
Earlier, Justice Minister Shaked said at the same conference: "We have to be wary of the politicization of legal counsel, and when a legal adviser makes a political speech, it is a dangerous process and undermines the confidence of the elected echelon. No one in the attorney general's office expresses political opinions and certainly not against the government.
"She also spoke about the attorney general's claim that the authority to fire Zilber was his alone."The attorney general and I have been working together for several years and there are issues that we disagree about. I'm not talking about authority. It cannot be that a legal adviser will exploit a platform in the Knesset for political messages."