Netanyahu trial delayed by another week as prosecution gets more time to hand over key evidence haaretz.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from haaretz.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
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Jun. 16, 2021 1:15 AM
Former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s defense attorney sought to show in court Tuesday that the owners of the Walla news site did not tilt coverage in Netanyahu’s favor to please him, but only to balance out what they lamented as the site’s left-leaning slant.
Attorney Boaz Ben Zur took this line as he continued his cross-examination of the prosecution’s key witness, Ilan Yeshua, former CEO of Walla, in the Jerusalem District Court. In this case, Netanyahu is charged with giving Shaul Elovitch, then controlling shareholder in Bezeq, hundreds of millions of shekels in regulatory benefits in return for positive coverage on Walla, which was owned by Bezeq. It’s legitimate for a newspaper owner to set editorial policy, but this policy must be made public, Yeshua stated during his cross-examination.
Defense Lawyers Had Asked for Recess Until September to Review Additional Evidence; the Court Relented on a 3-week Pause in the Trial After the Two Sides Agreed on It
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Jun. 10, 2021 12:39 AM
Judges in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s corruption trial accepted a request from his defense and ordered prosecutors to search the cellphone of Ilan Yeshua, former CEO of the Walla news website and central witness in the Bezeq-Walla bribery case.
Prosecutors were told Wednesday to locate all the relevant material concerning Yeshua’s involvement in the coverage on the website. Prosecutors are to pass on all the relevant materials to Netanyahu’s lawyers after the search. It is expected that the prosecution will find further material, and this will mean Yeshua’s testimony will take even longer.
Netanyahu's lawyers also continued their strategy from the previous day, arguing that a number of stories that appeared on the Walla website during the 2013 election campaign could be interpreted as anti-Netanyahu