Latest: Corruption and Money Laundering.

Israeli police to question US billionaire in Netanyahu probe.

Ronald Lauder

JERUSALEM: Israeli police plan to question US billionaire and World Jewish Congress president Ronald Lauder as part of an inquiry into gifts for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, reports said Wednesday (Oct 5).

Lauder had refused to be questioned after arriving in the country for last week's funeral of ex-president and Nobel Peace Prize winner Shimon Peres, Channel 2 television reported.

An agreement was reached in which investigators will either travel to New York in the coming days or Lauder will return to Israel.

"I am coming from a commemoration for the Babi Yar massacre (the execution of more than 34,000 Jews by the Nazis in Ukraine), and I arrive for the funeral of a good friend ... and you arrest me?" he said, according to Channel 2.

An Israeli police spokeswoman declined to comment on the reports.

Authorities have been looking into spending and gifts related to Netanyahu, though Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit has stressed that a formal investigation has not been opened.

Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that police want to question Lauder over gifts he allegedly gave Netanyahu and alleged spending on trips for him.

Lauder, whose family founded the Estee Lauder cosmetics giant, has long been seen as an ally of Netanyahu, who in the late 1990s put him in charge of negotiating with then Syrian president Hafez al-Assad.

Their relationship however is said to have taken a downturn after Israel's Channel 10 carried a report on the financing of Netanyahu's travel in 2011. Lauder was part owner of the channel at the time.

Netanyahu and his aides have repeatedly denied any wrongdoing.

In June however, he acknowledged receiving money from French tycoon Arnaud Mimran, who was sentenced to eight years in jail over a US$315 million scam involving the trade of carbon emissions permits and the taxes on them.

Readmore: