Police said to believe there is enough evidence to charge PM’s chief of staff for altering records
But sources tell newspaper that Tzachi Braverman unlikely to be indicted, as it would be tough to disprove his claim that he mistakenly changed timestamp on phone call from morning of Oct. 7 attack
Police believe they have gathered sufficient evidence to charge Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s chief of staff for tampering with records from the day of the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led onslaught, Hebrew media outlets reported Friday, though it does not appear he will be indicted.
Tzachi Braverman has been under investigation since 2024 for suspected forgery and fraud over the alleged illegal alteration of records, and has been questioned by police. He is suspected of having altered the stated time at which Netanyahu first received an update on the October 7 Hamas invasion via phone call from the premier’s then-military secretary Avi Gil, allegedly changing it from 6:40 a.m. to 6:29 a.m.
Braverman reportedly has admitted to changing the timestamp, telling police he did so only because he believed it was incorrect.
According to Friday’s reports, police wrapped up the probe over a year ago and handed over the investigatory materials to prosecutors, with the decision to indict Braverman now resting with Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara.
Channel 13 news reported that prosecutors lean toward closing the close, while the Haaretz daily quoted sources who said the chances that Braverman would be charged appeared low as it would be legally difficult to disapprove his claim the change was a mistake rather than intentional.
The reports came after Gil gave a pair of interviews in which he accused Braverman of tampering with the records in the months after the October 7 atrocities, confirming that he was informed by a stenographer at the Prime Minister’s Office that she was asked to retrieve the record of the phone call he had with Netanyahu on their secure line at 6:40 a.m. on October 7, and that Braverman told her to falsely change the documented time of that first secure call between Gil and Netanyahu to 6:29 a.m.
“The first thing I remember was wondering why, in January 2024, they were busying themselves with the stenogram of a four-minute phone call on the morning of October 7?” he told Channel 12 news. “To whom is it important? What was in the conversation that made it so important to deal with it?”
In a separate interview with Israel Hayom, Gil said said he then wrote a handwritten note to Baharav-Miara, saying he did not know why Braverman made the change but that it was criminal and noted the attorney general previously clarified to Netanyahu’s chief of staff about the rules concerning the gathering of official minutes.
“We’re talking about a pattern of criminal behavior by people who think they’re allowed to do anything they want. And the chief of staff behaved like someone who believed he could do anything,” Gil said. “It’s possible they were already working on the narrative we’re seeing today: that the prime minister was the only person functioning when the chaos began, because, supposedly, he issued all the necessary instructions from the very first second,” he said.
Asked whether Netanyahu knew what Braverman was doing, Gil said, “I find it hard to believe he didn’t. And even if he didn’t, that’s extremely serious. Narratives don’t come out of nowhere, someone is responsible for them, someone approves them. There was probably a discussion, and someone clearly thought it was important to change the time of that call. But let’s assume he didn’t know. Once I reported it, he knew. What did he do about it? Nothing.”
Responding to Gil, Netanyahu’s Likud party called the accusations against Braverman “a false blood libel that was already investigated” and again repeated the claim that if the prime minister was woken up in the hours before the October 7 attack, “everything would look different.”
In addition to minutes case, Braverman faces an indictment for obstruction of justice, fraud and breach of trust in connection with a scandal over the leak of classified documents. Due to those allegations, he has been unable to take up the post of Israel’s next ambassador to the United Kingdom, for which he was designated.