A day of testimony at the Jerusalem District Court ended in upheaval today as cross-examination of former Attorney General Dr. Avichai Mandelblit by Prime Minister Netanyahu’s attorney Amit Hadad exposed a chain of failures and contradictions that brought the prosecution’s case crashing down piece by piece.
3+Stage One: The Bribery Warning Collapses in Case 4000
The drama opened with Case 4000. Hadad presented Mandelblit on the witness stand with the official warning text used when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was interrogated. Mandelblit was forced to admit the word “bribery” was completely absent from the text. According to him, Netanyahu was only warned of suspicion of “receiving benefits from Shaul Elovitch in connection with his public role”—a legal definition that matches only the offense of breach of trust.
“In the warning text, I don’t remember approving the word bribery… The phrasing here is more suited to breach of trust,” Mandelblit said. When he tried to explain it was “convoluted” wording that could lead to other places, Judge Moshe Bar-Am rebuked him: “And you think that regarding the prime minister it’s right to do it in a convoluted way?”
3+Hadad charged that this severely violated the suspect’s basic right to know what he’s suspected of in order to exercise his right to legal counsel, since the advice given to Netanyahu in real time was only regarding breach of trust. Mandelblit responded: “It could be that this is a mistake,” and added that he doesn’t know who drafted the warning and placed responsibility on the accompanying prosecution.
Stage Two: Unauthorized Investigations in Case 1000
The discussion then moved to Case 1000. During the examination it emerged that a series of investigative actions and information gathering were allegedly carried out without the attorney general’s approval as required by law regarding a sitting prime minister. Mandelblit confirmed that in real time he believed Case 1000 was at most a violation of the gifts law, and confirmed the defense’s claim that regarding billionaire James Packer, this wasn’t a model of bribery and interests but a “Transy model.”
3+He further admitted that a series of critical moves were hidden from him: he didn’t know about a secret meeting held by Eran Kamin from Lahav 433 at a café with journalist Ben Caspit in November 2015 to extract information about Netanyahu; didn’t know about former Lahav 433 chief Roni Ritman’s claim in his Mahash investigation that the prime minister’s circle was persecuting him; and didn’t know that Attorney General Weinstein had already ordered the closure of the Bibi Tours affair investigation in September 2014 and forbade police from dealing with the matter.
“An investigative unit is not permitted to search for evidence proactively against a prime minister without his prior approval,” Mandelblit clarified. “If they listened before my advance approval, that’s not proper.”
3+Stage Three: Case 2000 Born from State’s Witness Deal—Contradicting Prosecution’s Position
The day’s climax came with Case 2000. Mandelblit revealed for the first time that the case was born after then-State Attorney Shai Nitzan updated him that Ari Harow’s attorney had approached him with transcripts and recordings of Netanyahu-Moses conversations as part of negotiations for a state’s witness agreement.
According to Mandelblit: “That he has these things that cast suspicion of the prime minister committing an offense and therefore it’s appropriate to open an investigation to establish this, we need to advance negotiations with Ari Harow to reach a state’s witness agreement.”
This testimony fundamentally contradicts the prosecution’s official position throughout the entire proceeding—that the materials were not handed over as part of state’s witness negotiations—a claim that served as grounds for concealing records and documents from the defense.
Following the revelation, Hadad demanded the hearing be stopped and all concealed materials be disclosed immediately. Prosecution representative Attorney Alon Gildin was forced to admit before the panel of judges: “I agree with my colleague that the witness testified on two points things that are different from things we said,” and requested time until Monday to reexamine the state’s position and consider cross-examining its own central witness.