Investigating Prime Minister's Advisers: The Court approved only a search of Ofer Golan's phone

The Tel Aviv Magistrate's Court has authorized the police to search only the mobile device of one of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's advisers, Ofer Golan, as part of an investigation into the witness's harassment. Refused to search the second counselor's device arrested as part of an investigation into the case, Jonathan Orich

Investigating Prime Minister's Advisers: The Court approved only a search of Ofer Golan's phone

The Tel Aviv Magistrate's Court on Sunday authorized police to search only the mobile device of one of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's advisers, Ofer Golan, as part of an investigation into the witness's harassment. The court did not permit a search of the cellphone device of the other counsel arrested during the investigation of the case, Jonathan Orich.

The judge, Alaa Masarwa, ruled that the evidence available to the police prior to the illegal search was sufficient to obtain a warrant, however, following the Supreme Court ruling, and in light of the fact that the police approached the court only after the search - things need to be examined differently. "The impromptu searches were made during the collection of messages from the suspects in this case," Masarwa wrote, about the difficulty of separating the evidence that police had in the first place from those obtained in the illegal search.

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Counsel Ofer Golan at court hearing (Photo: Reuven Castro)

Ofer Golan at the hearing on Manny Naftali's libel suit against Prime Minister's associate row, Herzliya Magistrate's Court, December 2, 2019 (Photo: Reuven Castro)

"The impromptu search results became part of the message and the meat of their flesh, and they thwarted the evidence and led to the other suspects as a chain effect," Masarwa argued in his decision. "The possibility of separating the white evidence from the black within the same evidence (the suspects' messages), even if it exists at the technical level, involves a great deal of constraint and artificiality, so it must be rejected in the essential aspect." The judge added that "it is difficult to establish that the evidence that led to the third or fourth suspect in the case is not the result of the investigation as a whole on its various parts."

However, Masarwa approved the search warrant on Ofer Golan's device, the prime minister's spokesman, because he found that "in his case, the defects can be easily separated and isolated." He added that "his name and involvement rose early in his investigation."

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