Seven personal aides to embattled Interior Minister Arye Deri were interrogated by police Sunday about Deri’s alleged improper disbursement of government funds.
One of them, Deri’s private secretary, was told Friday to report for questioning Sunday at the Jaffa police station. But the other six were hauled out of their beds Sunday in surprise predawn arrests.
The secretary, Yaffa Cohen, who is the daughter of former Sephardic Chief Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, was released by mid-afternoon and returned to Jerusalem. The other six were set free Sunday evening.
Among those questioned Sunday was Deri’s closest aide and spokesman, Zvi Jacobson. The aides refused to talk to the press after their interrogation.
Deri himself was grilled for nearly four hours last week by five police interrogators in his office in Jerusalem. There was no word on whether he would be questioned again.
According to observers, Sunday’s police action was intended as a high-profile demonstration of the force’s determination to proceed with the investigation of Deri, despite a vigorous campaign by the 31-year-old minister and his supporters in the ultra-Orthodox Shas party to impugn the investigation.
Deri and his supporters have repeatedly charged that the police are working in cahoots with the crime reporter for the daily newspaper Yediot Achronot, Mordechai Gilat, who broke the Deri story in June.
The chief of police, Ya’acov Terner, denies any collusion and argues that information coming from a journalist is as valid as information from any other source, once it is verified.
WIRETAP SUSPECTS IN CUSTODY
There was no word from police Sunday night whether the interrogation of Deri’s aides had dealt with the related but separate matter of a wiretap that was found at Gilat’s home.
Several copies of a tape of a conversation between Gilat and Terner have been made. There are people who apparently have heard it but will not admit to it. And no one has confessed to placing the wiretap, making the tapes or getting rid of them. One copy was found in a Tel Aviv cafe after a tip from an unknown party.
Several persons are in custody in connection with the wiretap and other suspected bugs. Among the suspects is an aide to another member of Deri’s Shas party, Knesset member Arieh Gamliel.
Police sources have unofficially said they ope to prove a direct link between Deri himself and the wiretaps.
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