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A corruption-related investigation is underway into the former Prime Minister and Defence Minister of Israel, Ehud Barak, who is one of the most influential politicians of the country’s government. The investigative agencies of Israel are inspecting a ‘suspicious financial deal’ between Barak and Azerbaijan, Israeli newspaper Haaretz reports, according to Azerbaijani news portal Haqqin.az.

According to the report, the Attorney General of Israel, Yehuda Weinstein, two weeks ago demanded that the former Prime Minister handed the whole email correspondence with ‘one of the major state-owned companies in Azerbaijan.’ The Israeli police initiated the investigation into Barak after he was learnt to have received several hundred thousand dollars from Baku. Baku had paid out that sum to the former Prime Minister of Israel for ‘advisor’s services.’ However, one of the versions maintains that the money could be a commonplace bribe, the portal writes. 

Israeli governmental sources say in case the examination of Ehud Barak’s email correspondence fails to bring about dramatic changes in the investigation, the Attorney General of the country will likely decide to close the criminal case against the former Prime Minister, Haaretz writes, according to Haqqin.az.

The Azerbaijani news portal also holds that Ehud Barak is not the first Israeli politician to be suspected of corrupt ties with Azerbaijan. Binyamin Fuad Ben-Eliezer, the former Defence Minister and the former leader of HaAvoda party, is accused of committing a range of crimes and corruption, including corrupt deals with businessmen, lobby of the interests of the oil company Shemen, money laundering and tax evasion. Haqqin.az points out that the charges of receiving bribes and money laundering brought against the 79-year-old veteran of the Israeli politics, Binyamin Fuad Ben-Eliezer, refer to the period when he was a prime minister and issued permissions to supply arms to Azerbaijan, Georgia and other countries.