Witness Tells Israel Court Netanyahu Controlled Media Outlet

The Walla news site was "totally accommodating" to the requests of the Netanyahu family, and that the Likud headquarters had control over the items at the site, Nir Hefetz, a former adviser turned state's evidence in Benjamin Netanyahu's corruption trial, testified on Wednesday.

Photo Insert: Former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was serving as communications minister at the time and allegedly led regulatory steps directly tied to Elovitch’s businesses.

Walla was owned by media mogul Shaul Elovitch, who allegedly engaged in a quid pro quo with Netanyahu. Hefetz told the Jerusalem District Court that he sent Walla stories he thought would not be carried by other media outlets, Netael Bandel reported for Haaretz.

In a message he showed during the hearing, Hefetz wrote to Walla CEO at the time, Ilan Yeshua, asking him to publish an article "that is very important to my friend [Netanyahu]", around the time a report was expected to be published detailing misconduct toward employees in the prime minister's residence.

On Tuesday, Hefetz also testified that the former prime minister’s wife Sara Netanyahu and son Yair asked him to make sure that media mogul Shaul Elovitch and his wife Iris were deleting any correspondence with them. Elovitch was a controlling shareholder of telecom giant Bezeq, which owned Walla.

Netanyahu was serving as communications minister at the time and, according to the indictment against him, led regulatory steps directly tied to Elovitch’s businesses and interests that yielded the tycoon some $500 million, in exchange for positive news coverage of the Netanyahu family. Netanyahu is on trial for bribery, fraud and breach of trust.

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