As national attention is on the High Court hearing on the reasonableness law, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s corruption trial is continuing at the Jerusalem District Court.
Avi Alkalay, the former editor of the Walla news site, says that in 2015-2016, the outlet’s editorial staff underwent “very aggressive mental coercion regarding the content relating to the Netanyahu family.”
Hollywood mogul Arnon Milchan, a key witness in one of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s corruption cases, is set to testify at the premier’s corruption trial via video link from Brighton, England, beginning on Sunday.
The film producer is a witness in Case 1000 — one of three in which Netanyahu faces charges — involving suspicions that the premier illicitly accepted gifts including cigars and champagne from Milchan and another billionaire, James Packer.
According to the report, during a routine hearing at the Jerusalem District Court on Tuesday, the judges engaged in a fifteen-minute discussion with the State Prosecutor‘s Office and Netanyahu‘s defense team and the other defendants, Shaul and Iris Elovich.
The judges reportedly emphasized that „the good of the state requires a settlement.“
(22.06.2023)
According to Walla and Channel 13, the judges convened with state prosecutors and Netanyahu’s defense team in their chambers in order to discuss the complexities involved in substantiating the bribery charge against the prime minister in Case 4000, the most significant of the three cases against Netanyahu that make up the trial.
Also known as the Bezeq-Walla case, it focuses on allegations that Netanyahu, during a previous tenure as prime minister, authorized regulatory decisions that financially benefited Bezeq telecommunications giant shareholder Shaul Elovitch by hundreds of millions of shekels.
(21.06.2023)
At the start of the hearing in Netanyahu’s ongoing trial for bribery, fraud and breach of trust, the three judges summoned both sides’ lawyers to their chamber for a private consultation. However, they declined to say what the discussion had been about.
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He also said that then-editor in chief Avi Alkalay routinely altered articles in ways that benefited Netanyahu. “There were also articles that were shelved,” he added.
Asked by prosecutor Yael Shahaf how Alkalay explained his behavior, Borochov said Alkalay told him “that he coordinates things with the Prime Minister’s Office,” and that if “things didn’t go the way they should,” he would be replaced with an editor in chief chosen by Netanyahu
(22.11.2021)
„Who did not see with his own eyes the level of control he exercised in this area can not realize it.“
The ex-adviser called his former employer „someone who would be beyond obsession with control. His entourage knows he should never be disturbed, except for anything related to the media. He wants to know everything, down to the smallest detail. Even when he was in security meetings, he demanded that he be passed notes.“
(22.11.2021)
Former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu asks for permission to be excused from the remainder of the testimony of Nir Hefetz, his former aide-turned-state’s witness, in his criminal trial.
(22.11.2021)
Detailing how the then-prime minister tried to use Elovtich’s “gift” of the Walla site, Hefetz said that Netanyahu was a “control freak” when it came to his public image, and that “he could not be more controlling in all matters relating to the media and his social media channels.”
“He demands to know everything, down to the smallest detail,” Hefetz said, confirming that Netanyahu himself made the requests to change coverage at Walla.
According to the prosecution’s statement, the new information is not directly connected to the testimony of state witness Nir Hefetz, a former aide of Netanyahu’s. In the wake of the announcement, Hefetz’s lawyers asked the Jerusalem District Court to postpone their client’s testimony scheduled for Tuesday.
The man who will take the witness stand in Jerusalem’s District Court on Tuesday is a refined embodiment of the Israeli power structure. Nir Hefetz was once the right-hand man of the country’s three dominant alpha males: former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Yedioth Ahronoth publisher Arnon Mozes and one-time tycoon Nochi Dankner.
There’s no better indicator of the judgment and moral compass of the men who presided over the nation’s government, media and economy.
Put simply, Hefetz is expected to testify that Netanyahu gave him orders dozens of times over several years in 2013-2016 to order former Walla CEO Ilan Yeshua to direct coverage the way the former prime minister wanted – and that Netanyahu gave him orders to ensure that Communications Ministry policy benefited Bezeq and Walla owner Shaul Elovitch.
(01.10.2021)
There are two parts to Case 4000, the Bezeq-Walla Affair.
One part is the accusation that Netanyahu got control over Walla coverage; and the other is that the then-prime minister and communications minister influenced government policy to favor Bezeq.
The connector between Walla and Bezeq was Shaul Elovitch, who owned both.
Netanyahu‘s trial resumed Monday after a two-week hiatus.
Defense attorneys began cross-examining Ilan Yeshua, who testified he was pressured to skew coverage on Walla in favor of Netanyahu and his family. Yeshua linked it to the alleged expectation of the then-controlling shareholder of Bezeq telecommunications, Shaul Elovitch, to receive regulatory concessions from Netanyahu in return for the favorable coverage. Walla was owned by Bezeq at the time.
In Israel läuft seit Wochen der erste Korruptionsprozess gegen Regierungschef Benjamn Netanjahu. Der zentrale Zeuge schilderte dabei im Detail, wie ein Regierungschef versucht, sich Medien gefügig zu machen: mit dem Versprechen, dem Inhaber via Medienbehörde lukrative Vorteile zu verschaffen, und gleichzeitigen Drohungen, ständigen Interventionen zu Artikeln und enormem internem Druck – dokumentiert in Telefonaufzeichnungen und Chatverläufen, in denen Netanjahu als „der Große“ bezeichnet wird.
They told him that Nir Hefetz, Netanyahu‘s former media advisor, told them that an investigation had been opened and that „all of them needed to coordinate their stories.“
„They proposed that I say that I initiated everything, that it was for ideological reasons, that I didn‘t want the site to be leftist,“ Yeshua said.
„They said that I needed to erase all of our correspondence,“ to which Yeshua objected, and said he told Elovitch that he was concerned that he would accidentally lose private photos. According to Yeshua, the two pressed him to delete the photos and said it critical that he did it.
Yeshua, the first witness, is testifying on the claims that Walla gave favorable coverage to Netanyahu at the request of Walla owner Shaul Elovitch. The latter, who was the controlling shareholder of the telecommunications giant Bezeq, is accused of bribing the prime minister, which, according to the indictment against Netanyahu and Elovitch, he did in exchange for regulatory benefits the prime minister gave Bezeq when he was communications minister.
The amended indictment against Benjamin Netanyahu in Case 4000 (the Bezeq-Walla case) is a hair-raising document that details no fewer than 230 demands by the prime minister and members of his immediate family for more favorable coverage from the Walla news website – 150 of them by Netanyahu himself, either directly or via an intermediary. It shows yet again how Walla became a propaganda tool for Netanyahu in the guise of an independent media outlet.
In its announcement Wednesday, the prosecutor’s office stated its intention to indict corporate entities Yedioth Aharonoth and Walla as well as Eurocom group companies through which Elovich controlled Bezeq, subject to a prior hearing. The Elovich group companies are suspected of bribery and money laundering, while Yedioth Aharonoth is accused of offering a bribe.
(11.06.2020)
Drucker‘s investigative report broadcast Wednesday on the Hebrew-language Channel 13, included a recording of Shaul Elovich, a personal friend of Netanyahu and a majority shareholder in the Bezeq telecommunications company, appearing to discuss with with former Walla news CEO Ilan Yeshua how to frame news coverage of Netanyahu so as to present the leader in a positive light.
Bezeq fully owns the Hebrew-language Walla website.
(21.11.2019)
Arnon (Noni) Mozes, the publisher of Israel‘s largest daily newspaper, Yedioth Ahronoth, is indicted for bribery in Case 2000, and Shaul and Iris Elovich are indicted for bribery, obstruction of justice and obstruction of the investigation.
In February, the attorney general announced that he was closing the cases against several other suspects in the Netanyahu cases; among them were the premier‘s wife Sara, Hollywood mogul Arnon Milchan and Knesset member Eytan Cabel (Labor-Gesher).
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu bashed the Israel Police Monday for confiscating the cellphones of his advisers as part of a probe into suspicions that they had harassed a state‘s witness who provided testimony in one of the criminal cases against the premier.
Taking to Twitter to denounce the move, Netanyahu wrote that it was „a terror attack on Israeli democracy and the right to privacy that every citizen should enjoy.“
Netanyahu spokesperson and media adviser allegedly harassed Shlomo Filber, who testified against Netanyahu in case 4000
Protests have continued for over two years near Mandelblit’s home in Petah Tikva to pressure him to take a stronger stance in the various probes against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Any doubts about illicit deals between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and fallen telecom tycoon Shaul Elovitch in the police’s Case 4000 should be put to rest after the details of Shlomo Filber’s statements to police investigators were leaked this week.
This is the case where the police believe Netanyahu traded friendly coverage by Bezeq’s Walla news site in exchange for help with regulations for the company, Israel’s dominant telecom provider. Filber, who had been appointed director general of the Communications Ministry in 2015 shortly after Netanyahu took over the portfolio, was the point man for the alleged trade-offs.
Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit’s lengthy description of Netanyahu’s alleged illicit dealings with Elovitch, known as Case 4000, took up the majority of the 57-page document released in February in which Mandelblit set out the allegations that prompted him to announce a criminal indictment against the prime minister, pending a hearing.
Netanyahu is scheduled to attend his own pre-indictment hearing in the case on October 2-3,
Yair Netanyahu, the son of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, called the police “Gestapo” when he was questioned as a suspect in the favorable-news-coverage affair last year, Israel‘s Channel 13 News reported Monday.
In the affair, known as „Case 4000,“ Netanyahu allegedly took steps that benefited Shaul Elovitch, who controlled telecom giant Bezeq, in return for favorable coverage in Bezeq‘s Walla News website.
(17.8.2018) Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu was questioned in his home today (Friday) by police investigators, regarding an alleged tit-for-tat between himself and media mogul Shaul Alovich, who served as Communications Ministry Director under Netanyahu.
Netanyahu is now convinced that the case – known as Case 4000 – „has collapsed for good,“ according to sources close to him.
(5.8.2018) Supreme Court Justice Isaac Amit on Sunday ordered police to return jewelry worth 600,000 shekels ($162,200) to Shaul and Iris Elovitch because it was seized without a court order.
The jewels were confiscated during the investigation of Case 4000 (the Bezeq bribery case). Amit said that taking the jewelry without a court order was illegal, thereby overturning rulings by the Tel Aviv Magistrate’s and District courts, and contrary to the state’s position.