Lawyer for Prisons Commissioner Says Probe Suspicions Have Come True

Attorney Udi Korb, representing Israel Prison Service Commissioner Chief Superintendent Kobi Yaakobi, launched an unusually sharp attack on the law-enforcement system and the Police Internal Investigations Department, known as Machash. He said the grave fears that the investigation would be derailed and distorted have now materialized, arguing that instead of investigating Machash, authorities chose to investigate the commissioner again.

Korb said that concerns over sabotage and obstruction in the case of the key witness were justified. “Unfortunately, our fears that the investigation into the key witness in the case would be sabotaged and obstructed have come true,” he said, adding that witness Abu Draham was not harassed and, according to him, was the one who repeatedly raised the relevant claims on his own.

He said those circumstances raise “grave concern” about the integrity of the investigation, especially in light of the witness’s own statements and what he described as evidence of ties between the witness and senior Machash officials, and the effect of those ties on the probe. Korb also accused the system of failing to thoroughly examine the serious suspicions Yaakobi had raised months ago about obstruction of justice and instead focusing on Yaakobi himself.

According to Korb, this was done without a serious examination of Machash’s conduct, which he said appears in recordings and testimony, and without first obtaining the version of the people implicated by the evidence. He ended with a pointed remark that “there are those who are equal before the law and those who are more equal,” and said they would insist that the matter be investigated properly.