Court denies Netanyahu lawyers’ request to hand over evidence from witness’s phone

The Jerusalem District Court judges overseeing the corruption trial of former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered prosecutors on Thursday to hand confidential information gathered by police over to Netanyahu’s defense team.

The information in question includes confidential documents concerning the use of the NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware by police to collect information related to Netanyahu’s trial.

“After closely examining confidential documents and hearing the mutual allegations, we have reached the conclusion that data from certain confidential documents may be revealed,” a statement issued by the court read.

However, the judges rejected an appeal made by Netanyahu’s attorneys to reveal classified information retrieved illegally from the phone of state witness Shlomo Filber.

Prosecutors had previously admitted that Filber’s phone was hacked with the Pegasus spyware, but claimed that no relevant information was found or used in the case and argued that the trial should therefore proceed as scheduled.

Judges Rivka Friedman-Feldman, Oded Shaham and Moshe Bar-Am agreed with prosecutors, writing that they “found no reason to hand [said information] to the defendants, as it provides no relevant information for the defense.”

Netanyahu is on trial in three corruption cases. He faces charges of fraud and breach of trust in Case 1000 and in Case 2000, and charges of bribery, fraud and breach of trust in Case 4000. He denies wrongdoing and says the charges were fabricated in a political coup led by the police and state prosecution.

Last month, the Calcalist news outlet published an unsourced, bombshell report claiming police had spied on dozens of high-profile figures — including former ministry directors, prominent business figures and family members and associates of former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The reports said police used the powerful Pegasus spyware from the surveillance company NSO Group to access phones, without any judicial oversight.

The police, however, maintained that any use of the program was done legally and with court approval, a claim that was largely supported by subsequent probes carried out by the police and the Justice Ministry.

A Justice Ministry statement has noted that the probe did not uncover any unsuccessful attempts by the police to use Pegasus without judicial oversight and that it also did not discover any police usage of other similar spyware against the individuals named in the original report.