Zini Reportedly Sought to Question Joint List Leader Yousef Jabareen

Shin Bet director David Zini reportedly sought to question Joint List chairman Yousef Jabareen under caution as part of the examination of suspected foreign election funding. The additional request was disclosed on November 8, extending the reported list of political leaders whose questioning Zini had sought to five. The other four named in the account are Ta'al chairman Ahmad Tibi, Balad chairman Sami Abu Shehadeh, Ra'am chairman Mansour Abbas and outgoing Hadash chairman Ayman Odeh. Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara reportedly told senior law-enforcement officials that reasonable suspicion supported questioning Odeh. For the remaining leaders, she reportedly said there was currently no reasonable suspicion sufficient to justify questioning. The disclosure follows earlier reporting that Zini had requested permission to question Tibi, Abbas and Abu Shehadeh, and that Baharav-Miara wanted evidence submitted before authorizing those interviews. The newly reported request concerning Jabareen adds him to that account of the exchanges between the Shin Bet director and the attorney general. On November 4, Odeh was identified as the politician at the center of an earlier examination of suspected receipt of hundreds of thousands of shekels in cash from a foreign source. That report said a written assessment setting out grounds for questioning Odeh had been supplied, whereas the requests concerning the other three leaders had been made orally.