Germany’s national security council has approved a deal to sell three further nuclear-capable submarines to Israel, Reuters reported on Friday, citing the German magazine Der Spiegel.
The submarine deal is controversial following a Channel 10 News report from last year which claimed that that there was a conflict of interests for attorney David Shimron, who is Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's private lawyer, and also represents ship builder ThyssenKrupp’s representative in Israel, Miki Ganor.
According to Der Spiegel, Germany inserted a clause into the contract giving it the right to tear it up if corruption allegations were proven.
Der Spiegel gave no source for its information and ministry officials were unable to comment immediately.
In February, State Prosecutor Shai Nitzan announced that Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit had upgraded the investigation into the “submarine affair” to a full criminal investigation into graft.
The decision was made based on information gathered by the police as part of the examination conducted in recent months, which raised reasonable suspicion of violations of the public trust and corruption on the part of several figures involved in the affair.
The State Prosecutor made clear that Netanyahu is not among the suspects in the investigation.
A report in April said that Israel and Germany had agreed that if the Israeli investigation of the submarine purchase would reveal corruption in connection with the transaction, the negotiations would be terminated and the transaction would be cancelled.
Israel already has five submarines of the Dolphin Class, which can be equipped with nuclear warheads, and a sixth is being built.
