Discussions of Cases 2,000 and 4,000 involving Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have been postponed due to the strict lockdown, Jerusalem District Court judges Rivka Friedman-Feldman, Moshe Bar-Am, and Oded Shaham announced Friday.
Case 2,000 focuses on an illicit deal Netanyahu allegedly tried to strike with Yedioth Ahronoth publisher Arnon Mozes under which Yedioth would soften its aggressive anti-Netanyahu stance in return for the prime minister using his influence to curtail the activities of Israel Hayom, Yedioth's chief rival.
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Case 4,000 centers around the Bezeq telecommunications corporation and the Walla news website, which Bezeq owns. Netanyahu, who held the communications portfolio until February 2017, is suspected of having offered Bezeq controlling shareholder Shaul Elovitch corporate benefits worth hundreds of millions of shekels in exchange for favorable coverage of him and his family on Walla.
On Thursday, Supreme Court Chief Justice Esther Hayut announced that starting on Sunday and until the current lockdown ends, Israel's courts would postpone hearings for traffic, small claims, and local cases. However, judges have the discretion to decide not to postpone a given hearing.
Hayut also said that that litigants and lawyers who wished to postpone the date of a hearing for reasons related to the lockdown could submit such requests to the court system, and that all deadlines currently in effect would remain in effect until a decision were made otherwise.
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