In a statement, Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara says that the decision to dismiss Ronen Bar, head of the internal security service Shin Bet, was "marked by a personal conflict of interest" and "fundamentally flawed", writes AFP.
She adds that Netanyahu's actions will politicize the role of Shin Bet chief.
Wanted to avoid testifying
Ronen Bar writes in a letter to the court – which is handling the case where Netanyahu's associates are suspected of having received bribes from Qatar – about why he was fired.
The Prime Minister allegedly asked for a security assessment "to determine that security conditions do not allow" him to testify in the ongoing trial in November last year, on "multiple occasions". But Bar refused.
Bar was also pressured to perform actions "against the state's citizens". He says he is willing to tell about this in detail behind closed doors, writes The Jerusalem Post.
Netanyahu says in a statement that Bar's letter is "full of lies" and that the discussion was about "the location of the testimony, not its existence".
Netanyahu announced on March 16 that he wanted to get rid of Bar due to "an ongoing lack of trust". It was later approved through a vote in the government, but Israel's Supreme Court has paused the procedure until April 8.
"Political witch hunt"
Two associates of Netanyahu were arrested on Monday suspected of bribery. The same day, an interrogation with Netanyahu was conducted, which he later dismissed as "a political witch hunt".
Bar and Netanyahu have disagreed on who bears the greater responsibility for Hamas's ability to carry out the bloody terrorist attacks on October 7, 2023. Shin Bet has taken responsibility for the intelligence failure surrounding the attacks in a report, but also criticized the political leadership.
It was also Shin Bet that first began investigating the bribery.
