Israel Police illegally hacked into the phone of a key witness in the criminal cases against former prime minister Binyanim Netanyahu, retrieving a large amount of data without a court warrant, Channel 13 News reported on Wednesday evening.
The retrieved data included text, photos, phone numbers, and use of various apps.
Channel 12 News played recordings in which police investigators are heard talking about illegally hacking someone’s phone, immediately prior to speaking with Shlomo Filber, a state witness in Case 4000.
In the ensuing uproar in response to the report, right-wing politicians called to drop the criminal cases against Netanyahu.
Netanyahu responded to the report by writing on Twitter: “An earthquake: This evening it was revealed that police illegally hacked phones in order to topple a strong right-wing prime minister.”
The revelation is likely to lead to significant delays in Netanyahu’s trial as his lawyers could demand to review the material and take appropriate action or demand a retrial if the individual in question was a witness who already testified in the case.
The report comes after Israel Police admitted that they illegally used spy software to hack into private citizens’ phones.
According to the Channel 13 report, the information about Netanyahu’s case was revealed as part of an inquiry by the Justice Ministry into the NSO exposé.
No comments:
Post a Comment