The journalist from the Israeli daily Ha’aretz who revealed Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was being probed over a $1,5-million loan was interrogated over the circumstances of the leak, the justice ministry said on Wednesday.
A special enquiry commission appointed by the ministry found after interrogating Baruch Kra on Tuesday that the reporter had obtained the information from Tel Aviv prosecutor Liora Glatt Berkovich, the statement added.
The judge was also interrogated and confessed to having leaked the information which temporarily rocked Sharon’s campaign but added she had acted on her own initiative.
She was not arrested but was restricted in her travels. The statement explained that the journalist had not been interrogated to reveal his sources but rather because he is accused of ”obstructing justice’.
On January 7, Ha’aretz revealed that Sharon and his sons Omri and Gilad had received a $1,5-million loan from a Cape Town businessman to cover debts run up during the 1999 elections for Likud leadership.
The allegations were only the latest corruption scandal surrounding the prime minister and his family, prompting his score in opinion polls to dip slightly.
Sharon’s camp had immediately accused dovish Labour party leader Amram Mitzna of orchestrating the leak to launch a smear campaign in a last-ditch attempt to close the gap three weeks before the January 28 vote.
Ha’aretz vigorously criticised the judiciary’s methods. ”The attorney general (Elyakim Rubinstein) is very much mistaken. Instead of investigating corruption suspicions inside the government, he is trying to intimidate the press to prevent it from carrying out its duty,” the editorial board of the daily said on Wednesday.
”He is harming Israelis’ right to be informed as well as the freedom of the press and the foundations of democracy,” the statement added. – Sapa-AFP