State Comptroller Eliezer Goldberg announced yesterday that he has decided to launch an official investigation into the making of the decision to approve the Tenenbaum-terrorist exchange deal. Asked whether the investigation will include last week's "hot issue" of Prime Minister Sharon's family connections with Tenenbaum's father-in-law, the State Comptroller's Office said only that the precise scope of the investigation will be determined during the course of the inquiry.
Minister Uzi Landau, who holds ministerial responsibility for the secret services, expressed satisfaction with the Comptroller's plan to investigate the issue. "This will put an end to all the speculation surrounding this issue," he said. Landau was strongly against the exchange, but defended Sharon against charges of having being influenced by his ties with Shimon Cohen, Tenenbaum's father-in-law. Sharon said last week that he had not kept up with Cohen since knowing him from the Sharon family-owned Shikmim Farm 25 years ago, and did not know of his relationship with Tenenbaum.
Police are reportedly of the opinion that polygraph tests show that Tenenbaum has finally told most of the truth: He did not stage his own abduction by Hizbullah, nor did he volunteer secret security information. He was instead abducted by Hizbullah elements while he was in the Persian Gulf trying to finalize a drug deal. Police are still trying to ascertain details of this deal, however. Tenenbaum's remand has been extended until at least the middle of next week.
Among the questions the State Comptroller is likely to investigate are: How was it that the government was mis-informed about the state of Tenenbaum's health? (Sharon even told the ministers that Tenenbaum's fingernails and teeth had been uprooted.) Did the government ministers have the whole story in front of them when they voted, by a narrow 12-11 vote, to approve the deal? How did it happen that a reserve officer such as Tenenbaum, who was made privy to top-secret information, was not more closely monitored?