Former Israeli AG admits not authorizing key steps in Netanyahu case

Former Israeli Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit, the man who in late 2019 announced the indictment of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for fraud, bribery and breach of trust, took the witness stand for the second day on Monday, on behalf of the defense.

“What the defense wants to show is that in this case there were investigations, and an attempt to recruit state witnesses, without the attorney general’s authorization,” Haim Shine, a faculty member of Israel’s Academic Center of Law and Science, told JNS. “There is a law that explicitly states that investigations of a prime minister must be done with the approval of the attorney general.”

From Mandelblit’s testimony it became clear that several investigative actions took place without his authorization: Some he didn’t know about at all, or only knew about in part, though he admitted he wasn’t aware of the Israel Securities Authority’s plan in 2017 to force former Communications Ministry Director General Shlomo Filber to become a state witness in Case 4000.

Case 4000 has always been regarded by prosecutors as the most severe. Unlike the others, it alleged a direct quid pro quo: that Netanyahu, while serving as communications minister, advanced regulatory decisions favorable to Bezeq, Israel’s largest telecom company, owned by Shaul Elovitch, in exchange for favorable coverage on the Walla news site.

Netanyahu’s attorney, Amit Haddad, presented Mandelblit with a transcript of an exchange between Liat Ben Ari, then-lead prosecutor in the Netanyahu trial, and investigator Yariv Amiad. Filber had asked, “What’s in it for me?” Ben Ari instructed Amiad to reply: “The price will be determined by the content [i.e. the juicier the evidence you provide, the sweeter a deal for you].”

Haddad asked Mandelblit on the stand: “What does that sound like to you?” Mandelblit replied, “Like negotiating for a state witness.” Mandelblit claimed, however, that he never authorized it.

When he first took the stand on Sunday, Mandelblit said he never approved the wiretapping of former Netanyahu chief of staff Natan Eshel as part of Case 2000, which centers on the allegation that Netanyahu attempted to strike a deal with Yediot Achronot newspaper publisher Arnon Mozes in exchange for more favorable coverage.

“That was an investigative action that infuriated me and I canceled it,” Mandelblit testified.

Mandelblit also said he didn’t know about the pressure exerted on a second state witness, Nir Hefetz, Netanyahu’s former media adviser. Investigators threatened to release information about his personal life. (In 2021, Hefetz broke down in tears on the stand. He described his interrogation during 15 days of detention in 2018 as reaching “monstrous proportions.”) 

“Certainly improper things were done with regard to the state’s witnesses,” he said on the stand, claiming that after the above incident was brought to his attention, he considered opening an investigation against those involved, but ultimately decided against doing so.

The former attorney general defended himself by arguing that he wasn’t required to approve every detail of an investigation. When pressed about the lack of authorization to the police to investigate the gift of cigars and champagne from businessman Arnon Milchan to Netanyahu, Mandelblit said he had given general authorization to check whether the prime minister had received favors from businessmen.

Shine said Mandelblit is in a difficult position. “On the one hand, he wants to tell the truth. And the truth is that they committed criminal acts here. But on the other hand, these are his friends. They all worked with him. He was probably even blackmailed.”

Shine referred to taped phone conversations from 2015 and 2016. First leaked by the press in 2020, Mandelblit complains in one recording about then-State Attorney Shai Nitzan, for not closing an investigation into his (Mandelblit’s) involvement in a 2010 military scandal. Mandelblit surmises in the conversation that Nitzan might want to keep the case open as leverage against him. “He can hold me by the throat,” said Mandelblit, who at the time was serving as Netanyahu’s Cabinet Secretary and was angling for the attorney general position.

Netanyahu’s political allies say Nitzan, a Netanyahu opponent, used the unresolved case to pressure Mandelblit to indict the prime minister.

Gadi Taub, a political commentator and public intellectual, who hosts the popular Hebrew-language podcast “Shomer Saf,” said the possibility can’t be ruled out.

“Mandelblit confessed in his own voice that Shai Nitzan, the state attorney who was hell-bent on taking down Netanyahu, was ‘holding him by the throat’ by postponing a decision to finally exonerate Mandelblit in an old case, known as the Harpaz Affair,” Taub told JNS.

“Now that the indictment Mandelblit submitted against Netanyahu is falling apart in court, and that Mandelblit himself is confessing ignorance of so many details of the investigation, it makes sense to speculate that he indicted a sitting prime minister for ulterior motives that had to do more with his own career than the merits of the case, let alone the public good,” he said.

During Monday’s testimony, Mandelblit denied such suggestions. “None of the decisions I made stemmed from pressure. All the decisions I made were based on my professional judgment,” he said.

While Mandelblit insists “professionalism” drove his decision to indict Netanyahu, a glaring lack thereof has emerged in the conduct of the case, with investigators bringing undue pressure against Netanyahu confidantes and keeping the attorney general in the dark as they explored new legal avenues against the prime minister.

“There is nothing more significant than the filing of an indictment against a prime minister because, in fact, this is an attempt to change the results of an election,” Shine said. “Therefore, the law says these things have to be done in a very orderly, very organized, very legal way.”

His explanation for the rule-breaking and the investigators’ general sloppiness is that the case is entirely political.

“They thought Netanyahu would fold in the face of the legal onslaught,” he said. Indeed, one of Netanyahu’s attorneys at the time, Jacob Weinroth, advised Netanyahu to cut a plea deal with Mandelblit, according to which the prime minister wouldn’t serve jail time in exchange for his exiting politics.

“The State Attorney’s Office was confident that Netanyahu would accept this recommendation,” Fine said. “They did not imagine that Netanyahu would fight them.”

The case against Netanyahu has dragged on for seven years. Fine said it’s proof that Israel’s legal system is “rotten” and badly in need of reform. “If such things can be done to a prime minister, then every citizen of the State of Israel should be worried.”

He said those who targeted Netanyahu should be forced from their positions, with the key figures prosecuted, though he said that won’t happen.

“They control the judicial system. The Supreme Court is theirs,” he said.