The President of the Supreme Court, Esther Hayut, ruled today (Tuesday) that a further hearing should be held in the ruling regarding the hacking of the mobile phones of the Prime Minister’s advisers, Yonatan Orich and Ofer Golan, as part of the suspicions of harassing the state witness in case 4000,
Netanyahu’s adviser at the entrance to the DIP // Photo: Moshe Ben Simhon
The additional hearing will be held before a panel of seven judges, headed by President Esther Hayut, chaired by Justices Yitzhak Amit, Uzi Vogelman, Neil Handel, George Kara, Noam Solberg and Dafna Barak-Erez.
Attorneys Amit Hadad and Noa Milstein, representing Orich and Golan, said: “The Supreme Court’s decision marks the great weight of the issue of principle at stake. “Without an in-depth discussion. We welcome the Supreme Court’s decision to hold an extended panel discussion on the issue.”
As you may recall, the cell phones of the prime minister’s advisers, Yonatan Orich, Ofer Golan, Yossi Shalem and Israel Einhorn, were seized by the police after an investigation was opened against them on suspicion of harassing state witness Shlomo Pilber. They allegedly sent a vehicle with speakers to Pilber’s residence building, shouting and slandering him for becoming a state witness against the prime minister.
The prime minister’s advisers were summoned for questioning by the police, during which they were asked to hand over the telephones in their possession to the investigators, without being explained that they could refuse the request and it would not be their duty. Investigators hacked into their cell phones, and subsequently applied for court approval, requesting that a phone intrusion order be issued. Their request was granted, intrusion orders for the telephones were issued, based on ‘confidential material’ brought before the court.