In a tetchy exchange in court, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s defense attorney Amit Hadad snipes at chief prosecutor Yehudit Tirosh that “you have no chance of a conviction,” after a fourth day of testimony in which Hadad and Netanyahu sought to demonstrate that the Walla news website frequently published articles distinctly hostile toward Netanyahu, and was not especially attentive to requests for improved coverage.
The exchange came after Judge Oded Shaham asked Hadad if he needed to repeat the same questions to Netanyahu regarding every example of alleged interference in Walla’s coverage mentioned in the indictment.
One of the indictments against Netanyahu alleges he formed a deal with Walla’s then-owner Shaul Elovitch for favorable coverage, and in return advanced regulatory decisions that benefited Elovitch’s controlling share in the Bezeq telecommunications company.
Throughout the four days of Netanyahu’s testimony, Hadad has gone through examples of requests allegedly made by Netanyahu and his family and associates seeking better coverage from Walla, and forensically examined them, asking Netanyahu the same questions time and again: whether he was involved in the request, his opinion on the slant of the article, and how well he felt Walla had adjusted it after the request was made.
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