Yaakov Turkel
Yaakov TurkelFlash 90

Ayala Hasson spoke Tuesday on 103 FM with former Supreme Court Justice Yaakov Turkel, about the list of allegations presented by Attorney General Mandelblit against Prime Minister Netanyahu.

"The prime minister has the presumption of innocence, and secondly, he has very large merits for what he did for the benefit of the people of Israel," Turkel said at the start of the interview.

"I am deeply saddened by what the Attorney General has determined. It saddens me that he reached these conclusions, but I assume that he had something to base them on," Turkel added, but admitted that he had not read the list of allegations. "I still hope that things will look differently in court."

“As for the timing, in my opinion it would have been more correct to initiate proceedings and announce the list of allegations and a hearing only after the elections. I think it would have been more decent if it had been done this way, but there could be different views on different matters."

In response to the question of whether the prime minister's feeling of being persecuted is based in fact, Turkel replied: "I believe so. The picture is of a hunting campaign and a persecution campaign that has been waged for a long time. As one who believes in rule of law and Israeli democracy, this does not sit well with me.”

Do you think that the enforcement authorities are also participating in this hunting campaign?

"No, by no means. I know the side of the State Attorney's Office from the many years that I was on the bench; There are certainly people with different views in every system, but I have full confidence in our prosecution and law enforcement agencies."

What do you think will remain of all the cases?

Turkel said that as in the past, when an attorney general closed a file against public figures but issued a statement about the problematic nature of the act, this may also happen with Netanyahu's cases: "I do not like the prime minister receiving expensive gifts like cigars and champagne, I’m very sorry about that, but it could be that in the space between ethics and crime, we will reach a place where we stop before the criminal space, and it is quite possible that the Attorney General will not indict for crimes.”