Netanyahu, Visiting U.S., Is Stalked by Legal Troubles at Home

                                           

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A former top aide to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel turned state’s witness on Monday, the third close associate to agree to testify against him in a corruption scandal that threatens to end his career.

The deal came after days of feverish speculation in Israel that Mr. Netanyahu, beleaguered by police investigations and facing possible bribery charges, might call a snap election in hopes of a quick validation of public support.

News of the plea deal broke as Mr. Netanyahu was in Washington to meet with President Trump, diminishing any hope the Israeli leader may have held that his role on the international stage would overshadow the scandals back home.

Mr. Netanyahu has denied any wrongdoing but the accelerating pace of the investigations and the pileup of state witnesses are casting a cloud over his political future.

The latest government witness is Nir Hefetz, a former journalist who served as chief spokesman for Mr. Netanyahu from 2009 to 2011, and later returned to work as the Netanyahu family’s media adviser, a post he held until October 2017.

He signed a deal with the authorities, the police said Monday, that is likely to yield damning evidence in at least one bribery case in which Mr. Netanyahu and his wife, Sara, are suspects, and possibly others.

Mr. Hefetz joins Shlomo Filber, a former director-general of the Communications Ministry, in cooperating with investigators in a case alleging that Mr. Netanyahu provided favors to Israel’s largest telecommunications company, Bezeq, in exchange for fawning coverage. Mr. Netanyahu was serving as minister of communications at the time.

On Friday, Mr. and Mrs. Netanyahu were questioned for hours about the case in separate locations — he in the official prime minister’s residence, she at the headquarters of the fraud investigations unit in central Israel. The police were reported to have surprised Mrs. Netanyahu by questioning her as a suspect, rather than just taking her testimony as a witness, and to have set up an elaborate six-way interrogation, questioning other main suspects, including Mr. Hefetz; Shaul Elovitch, the owner of Bezeq and a friend of Mr. Netanyahu’s; and his wife Iris, a friend of Mrs. Netanyahu’s, in separate rooms and feeding information to investigators.

                                                                       

Mr. Hefetz also has been implicated in another case, involving allegations that he sought, through an intermediary, to bribe a judge into dropping a separate criminal investigation involving the misuse of public funds by Mrs. Netanyahu.

The third state witness, Ari Harow, Mr. Netanyahu’s former chief of staff and once one of his closest confidants, seven months ago and was expected to provide incriminating evidence in two other graft cases involving illicit gifts for favors and back-room dealingswith a local newspaper magnate in another bid for favorable press coverage.

Last month the police recommende that Mr. Netanyahu be charged with bribery, fraud and breach of trust in both of those cases. Israel’s attorney general, Avichai Mandelblit, has yet to decide whether to issue an indictment, pending a hearing with Mr. Netanyahu’s lawyers, a process that can take months.