Evidence phase begins: Prime Minister Netanyahu in Jerusalem court // Photo: Reuters
ongoing updates
9:48: Adv. Ben-Zur: “A criminal investigation against the Prime Minister is not just his personal investigation, it is of course the whole envelope that concerns the Prime Minister’s case. Why? Because it is obligatory in the language of the legislature and it is also obligatory from the purpose. The purpose is to protect the government institution called the prime minister. “
9:40: Prime Minister Netanyahu received a note from one of his lawyers and left the courtroom.
9:35: Netanyahu’s attorney, Adv. Boaz Ben Tzur, asked the State Attorney’s Office to pass the full approvals of Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit to open an investigation against Netanyahu: 17 of the Basic Law of the Government stipulates a simple mandatory provision – a criminal investigation will not be opened against the Prime Minister, except in the Attorney General’s decision that the Attorney General is obliged to approve the opening of a criminal investigation against the Prime Minister.
9:25: The Prime Minister answered Judge Rebecca Friedman-Feldman’s question and said that he approves the response to the indictment and denies the charges.
9:20: The panel of judges, which includes Judge Rivka Friedman-Feldman, Judge Moshe Baram and Judge Oded Shaham, entered the courtroom. The discussion begins.
8:55: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu enters the court accompanied by his lawyers ahead of the start of the hearing in his cases.
8:45: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s convoy arrived at the Jerusalem District Court ahead of its trial at 9:00 p.m.
8:30: Dozens of protesters arrived outside the court and at the prime minister’s residence in Jerusalem, wearing glowing vests with the caption “Cleaning the garbage,” with brooms and garbage cans in their hands.
Netanyahu’s trial resumes: PM’s opponents demonstrate outside residence in Balfour // Photo: No situation
Technical and brief discussion
Multiple media teams from the country and the world frequented the hall, but due to the Corona regulations only two seats were reserved for reporters in the hall itself. The rest were forced to cover the trial from another room where the trial would be broadcast in a closed circuit. Prime Minister Netanyahu released a video yesterday in which he calls on his supporters not to attend the hearing due to the spread of corona disease: “I know you are planning to go to court. I know you want to strengthen me in the face of the stitched and false cases against me. But we are in a time of mutation spreading around the world, even in Israel, so for your health I ask you – do not come. ”
Due to the spread of the corona: Netanyahu is calling on his supporters not to go to court tomorrow
Netanyahu’s defense team requested an oral hearing on the requests regarding Appendix A to the indictment and the ombudsman’s approval for investigation into his case. The court ruled last Sunday that “at the end of the hearing in response to the indictment in the case of all defendants, (Netanyahu) As part of this, the parties will be able to orally complete the arguments submitted in writing. ”
The defense team claims that some of the allegations in the amended indictment were not presented to Netanyahu during the investigation and should therefore be deleted from the indictment. The State Attorney’s Office, for its part, holds that these are idle allegations whose purpose is to attract time. The prosecution expressed its position that at the stage of presenting the evidence and clarifying the allegations, the truth will be clarified and the possibility will be given for the defense to investigate the prosecution witnesses. At this point, naturally, start soon.
The State is represented in this hearing by the Chief Prosecutor in the Alps cases, Adv. Liat Ben-Ari, as well as members of the 4000 case, Adv. Yehudit Tirosh, Amir Tabenkin and Assaf Issuk, and members of the 1000 and 20000 case files, Adv.
The court has already stated that it intends to begin the evidentiary hearings in February, but due to the postponement of the last hearing following the closure on the matter it may be postponed to next month. The court ruled that the hearing would be relatively intense – 3 hearings a week.
As will be recalled, the indictment against Netanyahu includes 3 charges according to the files:
1000
It is the gift portfolio, the spokesman suspects that for about twenty years the Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, received benefits in the form of gifts (cigars, champagne and jewelry) from businessmen James Packer and Arnon Milchin in the total amount of about 700,000 shekels in total and at the end of Netanyahu’s Day helped him get a visa to enter the United States.
2000
The letter of suspicion attributes to Netanyahu in this case fraud and breach of trust. As for Noni Mozes, Mandelblit decided that an indictment would be filed against him for bribery.
4000
He is a Bezeq case, the prime minister is suspected of having benefited from Bezeq and controlling shareholder Shaul Elowitz in exchange for sympathetic coverage on the Walla website by approving, as Minister of Communications, the completion of the Bezeq-Yes deal. The value of all operations carried out on suspicion by Netanyahu reached NIS 1.8 billion.
The letter of suspicion attributes to Netanyahu in this case bribery and fraud and breach of trust. In the case of the couple Shaul and Iris Elowitz, it was decided to file an indictment for bribery, obstruction of justice and dismissal in the investigation against both of them.
