Netanyahu investigation internal emails revealed – and the investigator found himself embarrassed

During Netanyahu's trial, attorney Jacques Chen presented emails from 2017 instructing Israel Securities Authority investigators not to ask specific questions about the prime minister or Tzachi Hanegbi. Investigator Ben Artzi confirmed the instructions were binding but did not recall receiving permission to deviate from them.

During the trial of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the defense attorney for Shaul Elovitch, Jacques Chen, presented two internal emails sent to Israel Securities Authority investigators on July 12, 2017, as part of the Bezeq affair investigation. The emails, sent by Chen Nahoran and Yariv Amiad, instructed investigators not to ask specific questions about Netanyahu or Tzachi Hanegbi, but to limit themselves to open-ended questions or topics raised by the subjects themselves. Authority investigator Ben Artzi, who testified in cross-examination, confirmed that such instructions are binding on him but did not recall receiving later permission to deviate from them. The instructions relate to the period when the Bezeq investigation was conducted solely by the Securities Authority, before the joint investigation with the Israel Police in Case 4000 that began in February 2018. The presentation of the documents was intended to strengthen the defense's claims regarding restrictions imposed on the investigation of senior political figures.