Prisons chief questioned over witness intimidation in Ben Gvir associates probe

Senior Israel Prison Service commissioner Kobi Yaakobi was questioned on Wednesday by the Israel Competition Authority on suspicion of trying to intimidate a witness in the case involving associates of National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir. Yaakobi is expected to stand trial in that affair on charges of fraud and breach of trust, as well as obstructing an investigation.

According to the suspicion, a senior police officer who was also questioned this week was sent by Yaakobi to coax the Israel Police spokesperson chief, Deputy Commissioner Lior Abohdram. The officer later recorded Abohdram, and investigators say he appeared to describe an intimate relationship with an investigator from the Police Internal Investigations Department who had been involved in the case against Yaakobi.

After those claims surfaced, Abohdram and the investigator separately took private polygraph tests, and both were found truthful when they said they had not even known each other personally. At the same time, a senior police officer filed a complaint that Abohdram had sexually harassed her. That complaint is also being investigated by the Competition Authority, not by the Internal Investigations Department, because of a conflict of interest. Abohdram has denied all allegations, calling them a “false plot” and a baseless complaint aimed at harming him because he is a witness against Yaakobi.

Yaakobi’s lawyer, Uri Korb, said the fears of derailing the case had come true. He argued that the witness himself was the one who repeatedly raised the claims, and said there were “grave concerns” about the integrity of the investigation, especially given alleged ties between the witness and senior Internal Investigations Department officials. Korb also accused law enforcement of choosing to investigate Yaakobi again instead of properly examining the conduct of the Internal Investigations Department.

The broader investigation began about a year and a half ago, when the Internal Investigations Department opened a covert probe into senior police and National Security Ministry officials. Its focus included then-Shai District Major Crimes Unit commander, Superintendent Aviisai Mualem, who was suspected of deliberately avoiding arrests of extremist right-wing activists and leaking classified information to Ben Gvir’s office in exchange for promotion. Later, investigators suspected Yaakobi had passed Mualem information about a covert probe into him, which concerned alleged efforts to prevent arrests of suspects in Jewish terror cases in return for promotion. In April, Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara announced that an indictment against Yaakobi would be filed.