Court upholds police request extending ban on Netanyahu’s chief of staff from PMO

The Lod District Court rules in favor of an appeal by the police to bar Tzachi Braverman, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s chief of staff, from the Prime Minister’s Office, due to an ongoing police investigation into Braverman on suspicion of obstruction of justice.

Judge Jacob Spasser rules that Braverman cannot be present in the Prime Minister’s Office or the IDF’s headquarters at the Kirya complex in Tel Aviv until January 26.

Spasser also prohibits Braverman from contacting a list of people connected to, but not necessarily suspects in, the Bild leaked documents case, including Netanyahu himself; the prime minister’s military secretary; key suspects in the Bild affair Jonatan Urich and Eli Feldstein; and various other officials in the Prime Minister’s Office, until February 10.

The judge rules that the restriction on Braverman leaving the country can be shortened, and that the restriction be kept in place until January 30, where the police had sought to keep the restriction in place until February 9.

Braverman is suspected of attempting to quash or influence a military investigation into the allegedly unlawful removal of documents from IDF Military Intelligence and the leaking of at least one of those documents to the German Bild newspaper.