Nir Hefetz: Court ‘can just kill me’ if it’s neutralizing gag order

Significant details were already revealed last week regarding a third party who the police used to pressure Hefetz, a former Netanyahu family media adviser, to turn state’s witness in February 2018.

By YONAH JEREMY BOB
Nir Hefetz, a former associate of Benjamin and Sara Netanyahu and state witness in Case 4000 (photo credit: AVSHALOM SASSONI)
Nir Hefetz, a former associate of Benjamin and Sara Netanyahu and state witness in Case 4000
(photo credit: AVSHALOM SASSONI)
Nir Hefetz yelled “you can just kill me” at the judges and stormed out of the courtroom on Sunday at a hearing about whether to remove a gag order about issues which could cause him deep embarrassment or whether the removal could undermine his stability as a state’s witness.
The hearing before the Tel Aviv Magistrate’s Court had media and interest groups on both the Left and the Right seeking to remove the gag order, arguing either that the public had a right to know, or that the gag order was trying to cover-up improper police tactics used to turn Hefetz against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Significant details were already revealed last week by Acting Justice Minister Amir Ohana regarding a third party who the police used to pressure Hefetz, a former Netanyahu family media adviser, to turn state’s witness in February 2018.
This led Hefetz’s lawyer and a lawyer for a third party implicated in the story under gag order to both threaten criminal and civil legal consequences.
Throughout Ohana’s speech last week, Labor MK Revital Swid and Blue and White MKs Yael German and Yoav Segalovitz interrupted, saying he should be ashamed for trying to tear down the country’s law enforcement at Netanyahu’s bidding.
Later, Segalovitz sent a letter to Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein, calling on him to establish an ad-hoc Knesset ethics inquiry into Ohana’s alleged violation of the gag order.
After being attacked both in the Knesset and on Twitter for violating the gag order, Ohana responded that everything he said was already published in the public sphere.
He denied violating the gag order, saying he does not even have copies of all of the classified materials.
The attorney-general’s office said it did not want to comment on whether Ohana had violated the gag order.
Netanyahu himself supported actions to undercut the police for allegedly improperly pressuring Hefetz to testify him, but implicitly criticized Ohana for violating the gag order.
Hefetz stomped around the hallways of the courtroom, trying to escape a train of media attention with a deep look of anger and fear on his face.
Eventually his lawyer came out and brought him back to the courtroom, where he pleaded with the court to close the hearing itself to the press. His earlier outburst had been at a court decision to allow the press to cover the hearing about whether to lift the gag order.
The court appeared to be unconvinced that the gag order needed to remain absolute, saying that the investigation was already finished.
However, the prosecution and Hefetz’s lawyer both argued that lifting the gag order could lead him to become destabilized and eliminate him as a key prosecution witness. They also said that almost all of the information under gag order had nothing to do with Netanyahu, and that parties who wanted the information only sought it to intimidate Hefetz from testifying.
With the prosecution expected to indict Netanyahu in the coming weeks, the pro- and anti-Netanyahu sides have been taking shots at each other and at the prosecution nearly every day.
    


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