Police reportedly detained Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s chief of staff for interrogation on Sunday over his alleged attempt to obstruct a probe into the leak of classified intelligence to German tabloid Bild.

Police acknowledged detaining an aide to the premier. Hebrew media outlets reported that the suspect was Tzachi Braverman, a longtime top figure in the prime minister’s inner circle who is set to become Israel’s ambassador to the UK.

“This morning, a senior official in the Prime Minister’s Office has been detained by Lahav 433 officers on suspicion of obstructing investigative procedures,” police said in a statement.

Investigators in the police’s Lahav 433 major crimes unit searched Braverman’s home during the morning and questioned him in the unit’s Lod headquarters on suspicion of obstructing justice.

Channel 13 reported that officers seized Braverman’s phone and also summoned Omer Mansour, a spokesperson in the PMO, to give testimony in the affair.

The interrogation came after Netanyahu’s indicted former spokesman Eli Feldstein claimed Braverman knew of a covert investigation into the leak months before it was publicized and had assured the ex-aide that he’d be able to quash the probe.

In an interview with the Kan public broadcaster last month, Feldstein said Braverman asked to meet him late at night in an underground parking lot in the Kirya military headquarters, where he informed him that the IDF had launched an investigation into the leak.

Braverman allegedly told Feldstein that the list of suspects went as high as the Prime Minister’s Office and urged him to inform him if he was in any way connected to the leak, as he would be able to “shut it down.” According to Feldstein, Mansour witnessed the meeting.

In the wake of the interview, police opened an investigation into Feldstein’s claim.

A source in Lahav 433 told Channel 12 that Feldstein is expected to give testimony in the........

© The Times of Israel