Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s testimony in the Case 2000 trial was abruptly interrupted on Wednesday after he was handed a secret envelope in court, prompting him to tell the judges he needed to take an urgent phone call. The judges advanced the recess after what was described as additional developments requiring his immediate attention, leaving the parties and the public uncertain about the nature of the event that stopped the proceedings.
The disruption came at a tense moment in a heated legal battle over the future of the case. Netanyahu’s defense, led by attorneys Amit Hadad and Sharon Klainman, had just been clashing with prosecutors over what they said was a new theory being introduced by the state, one that went beyond the indictment. Klainman argued that the prosecution was presenting a new line claiming Netanyahu systematically used Ari Haro to pressure publisher Momi Mozes into favorable coverage, saying, “A new thesis is being presented about requests for coverage that are passed regularly through intermediaries... This argument was raised for the first time in cross-examination. It is inconceivable that the prosecutor will be allowed to make a new claim and I have no chance to examine it.”
Prosecutor Alon Gildin rejected the criticism, saying the state was staying within proper bounds. “We are not opening any new front,” he said. “We used evidentiary material that was part of the investigation file and had been before the defense all along.” Netanyahu, meanwhile, denied the prosecution’s core allegation, answering emphatically that he never felt Mozes was responding to his requests in order to make him satisfied with the coverage: “Absolutely not, I never felt that, quite the opposite.”
Case 2000 centers on the relationship between Netanyahu and Yedioth Ahronoth publisher Momi Mozes, and prosecutors say it involved an improper give-and-take arrangement meant to sway media coverage in Netanyahu’s favor. Netanyahu’s testimony has recently been aimed at dismantling that theory and arguing that the conversations were legitimate exchanges between public figures and a newspaper publisher. Wednesday’s hearing had been set to continue the renewed questioning intended to show that the state’s alleged “ongoing relationship” is actually a mistaken interpretation of isolated, insignificant conversations.
