{"id":4343,"date":"2012-12-15T23:15:37","date_gmt":"2012-12-16T05:15:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/?p=4343"},"modified":"2012-12-15T23:15:37","modified_gmt":"2012-12-16T05:15:37","slug":"liberman-resigns-post-following-indictment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/liberman-resigns-post-following-indictment\/","title":{"rendered":"Liberman resigns post following indictment"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>(JTA) &#8212; Avigdor Liberman resigned as Israel\u2019s foreign minister following his indictment for fraud and breach of trust.\u00a0\u201cI have committed no offense but I wish to put behind me this issue, which is what remains of many years of investigation,\u201d Liberman said in a statement Friday.<\/p>\n<p>Liberman said that he would also step down as vice prime minister and lift his immunity from prosecution, to which he is entitled as a member of Knesset.<\/p>\n<p>On Dec. 13, Israeli Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein closed a 12-year investigation on Liberman, dismissing most of the charges. But he indicted Liberman for fraud and breach of trust for advancing former ambassador to Belarus Ze&#8217;ev Ben Aryeh&#8217;s position in the Foreign Ministry allegedly in exchange for information about an investigation against Lieberman being conducted in Belarus. Last spring, Ben Aryeh confessed that he had received and passed documents to Liberman in 2008.<\/p>\n<p>In his statement, Liberman added: \u201cI am stepping down also because I believe the citizens of Israel deserve to go to the ballot box with this thing already settled, so I can resume serving the state of Israel and its citizens.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>According to Ynet, Liberman does not plan to resign as number two of Halikud Beiteinu &#8212; the merger of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu\u2019s Likud and the Yisrael Beiteinu party headed by Liberman.<\/p>\n<p>Liberman has said he wished for a \u201cquick trial,\u201d but it is not known whether this could be concluded ahead of Israel\u2019s general elections scheduled for January 22.<\/p>\n<p>A statement by the Prime Minister\u2019s Office said that Netanyahu spoke with Liberman \u201cand wished he [Liberman] would soon prove his innocence in the sole remaining issue at hand and return before long to take up a senior cabinet post.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Labor Party&#8217;s chairwoman, Shelly Yachimovich, said in a statement that Netanyahu\u2019s words \u201cleft a bad taste\u201d and reflected \u201cpoor judgement.\u201d She called Netanyahu\u2019s statement \u201can ignominious blessing.\u201d<\/p>\n<div style=\"padding-bottom:20px; padding-top:10px;\" class=\"hupso-share-buttons\"><!-- Hupso Share Buttons - https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/ --><a class=\"hupso_toolbar\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" data-src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/buttons\/share-medium.png\" style=\"border:0px; padding-top: 5px; float:left;\" alt=\"Share Button\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==\" class=\"lazyload\" \/><noscript><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/buttons\/share-medium.png\" style=\"border:0px; padding-top: 5px; float:left;\" alt=\"Share Button\"\/><\/noscript><\/a><script type=\"text\/javascript\">var hupso_services_t=new Array(\"Twitter\",\"Facebook\",\"Google Plus\",\"Pinterest\",\"Linkedin\",\"Tumblr\",\"Email\");var hupso_background_t=\"#EAF4FF\";var hupso_border_t=\"#66CCFF\";var hupso_toolbar_size_t=\"medium\";var hupso_image_folder_url = \"\";var hupso_url_t=\"\";var hupso_title_t=\"Liberman%20resigns%20post%20following%20indictment\";<\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/js\/share_toolbar.js\"><\/script><!-- Hupso Share Buttons --><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[1487,1488,8790,8795,8788,1496],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4343"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4343"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4343\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4344,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4343\/revisions\/4344"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4343"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4343"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4343"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}