From the Liveblog of
Tuesday, February 11, 2025
3 Netanyahu aides indicted for intimidating witness in PM’s corruption trial
Jeremy Sharon is The Times of Israel’s legal affairs and settlements reporter
Two current and one former aide to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are indicted on charges of witness intimidation for sending a car with a megaphone to the home of a key witness in Netanyahu’s criminal trial in order to harass him in 2019.
The three are Ofer Golan, a spokesman for the Netanyahu family and the director of the Likud election campaign in 2019; Jonatan Urich, a strategic adviser and a senior official in Likud’s election campaign staff; and Yisrael Einhorn, who served as a Likud spokesman.
Witness intimidation carries a three-year prison sentence, although that can be increased depending on the circumstances.
In 2019 when Netanyahu was being investigated on corruption charges, Golan, Urich, and Einhorn jointly came up with a plan to harass Shlomo (Momo) Filber, a former director-general of the Communications Ministry who turned state witness in the investigation against Netanyahu, the indictment says.
They arranged for a vehicle with a megaphone to be sent to Filber’s home in Petah Tikva, and played recorded messages outside his house including “Momo, be a man, go and tell the truth Momo Filber, [about] what they did to you for you to lie against the prime minister, what they promised you.”
Another message said, “The left is using you to topple Likud, Momo, hear what you yourself said before the police pressured you.” The loudspeaker also played a media interview Filber gave in which he was heard saying that decisions Netanyahu made while serving as communications minister, with Filber serving as director-general of the ministry, were “professional.”
Filber recently said he would be filing a lawsuit against the police and the Israel Prison Service for sexual assault he says he was subjected to by prison officers while in detention in connection with alleged wrongdoing at the Communications Ministry, for which Netanyahu was indicted.
Golan and Urich say in response to the indictment: “After years of drawn-out legal proceedings, after the senior state attorney lawyer on the case Dr. Haim Wismonsky decided to close the case, after Filber himself told the State Attorney’s Office he was not intimidated and wasn’t interested in the process, and after the Supreme Court ruled that the police, together with the State Attorney’s Office, carried out illegal action and that the evidence was illegitimate — [State Attorney] Amit Aisman has the audacity to file a tattered indictment of two paragraphs.”
“If they want a war they’ll get a war. We’ll meet in court.”
