The Israel Police denied Monday that death threats were made to Temple Mount activist Yehuda Glick before he was shot, claiming - despite an actual recording of such a call being made - that if such threats were made, they had not been informed.
The Jerusalem District Police revealed Monday that 16 complaints were filed by Glick from 1995 to 2014 over various threats made to him, but said that none of the complaints referred to threats on his life.
Arabs did threaten to harass Glick in June 2014, however, during the activist's next visit to the Temple Mount.
Glick - who founded and heads the LIBA Initiative for Jewish Freedom on the Temple Mount - was shot in the chest on Wednesday night outside the Begin Heritage Center in Jerusalem, after the shooter pulled up in a motorcycle or scooter, and confirmed Glick's identity before shooting.
He had been speaking, minutes before being shot, at an event for Jewish rights on the Temple Mount that had hosted leading religious figures and MKs.
On Monday morning, Galei Yisrael radio's Kalman Libeskind played back tapes of police conversations proving that the police did, in fact, know of death threats made to Glick.
In the recording, Col. Avi Biton, Commander of the Jerusalem Police's David Precinct, is heard saying in a meeting with Glick two months ago that police are familiar with the threats against Glick's life.
"Mr. Glick turns into a red rag (to a bull),” he explained. “I mean, the number of times you ascend, and again – I, personally, really do not care, you can ascend to the Temple Mount 80 times, but I want to create a balance, I see what the other side thinks, I see what the other side writes.
"OK, by the way, you have been warned here,” said Biton. “You've been warned to avoid getting hurt. We did, after all, have some intelligence information that someone wants to hurt you.
Glick replied: “I get this (threats) on Facebook every day.”
Biton: Fine, OK.
Glick: “It's as if they threaten my life daily.”
Biton's response was surprisingly blase: "Like everywhere in Israel," he said, referring to ongoing Arab violence elsewhere in the country.
But on Monday afternoon, the Israel police insisted that Glick did not mention threats to his life, but that Biton did guarantee to him to continue providing a police detail to the activist on future visits to the Mount - and that the guarantee was the main part of the conversation recorded.