Prosecutors say they’ve been unable to get Yisrael Einhorn extradited to Israel in PMO corruption cases

The State Attorney’s Office tells the Petah Tikva Magistrate’s Court that it has not been able to have Yisrael Einhorn, a former adviser to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, brought to Israel to stand trial on charges of witness intimidation.

It further states that it cannot conduct the trial against Einhorn’s fellow defendants in the case, Ofer Golan and Jonatan Urich, two other advisers to Netanyahu, without Einhorn himself, Hebrew media report.

Einhorn lives in Serbia and has refused to return to Israel for the purposes of the legal proceedings against him in the witness intimidation case, or to answer questions under caution relating to his alleged role in the Bild-leaked documents affair and the Qatargate affair. He is a suspect in both cases.

In light of the prosecution’s inability to have Einhorn extradited, Judge Dror Kleitman asked the State Attorney’s representatives to inform the court within two weeks if it wishes to proceed with the trial against Golan and Urich.

Einhorn, Golan, and Urich were indicted in February 2025, on charges of witness intimidation for having sent a car with a megaphone to the home of a key witness in Netanyahu’s criminal trial in 2019 in order to harass him.

In 2019, Netanyahu was under investigation for wrongdoing during the three years he served as communications minister, in addition to serving as prime minister. Shlomo Filber was appointed by Netanyahu to serve as the director general of the Communications Ministry, and went on to turn state’s witness against Netanyahu.

Prosecutors alleged, in the indictment against the three Netanyahu advisers, that they arranged for two people to drive a vehicle with a loudspeaker to Filber’s home in Petah Tikva and play recorded messages criticizing him for his testimony to the police against Netanyahu.