Was there or was not a directive - that is the question.
That's the point, and everything else is butterflies.
The first day of state witness testimony Shlomo Pilber raised many expectations, but in practice this testimony is a long way from the finish line of the trial.
Anyone who expected that the "dramatic" testimony would decide the fate of the trial today - was wrong.
Upon hearing an ear, many of the statements heard during the day of Pilber's first testimony are outrageous and sometimes downright disturbing.
For example, the talk of "investigators sticking their teeth into an interrogee" was, for example, a starving Rottweiler, or the thick allusions to an "alliance of thieves" between a senior public servant and his partners - overt and covert - influencing decision-making and content.
Indeed, on the substantive level, and at the end of the day, it is not these who will determine the fate of the trial.
So is Pilber's statement that he "loves Netanyahu and is the object of his admiration," or tweets he has made in recent months regarding his opinion on the case.
All of these have no real relevance to the legal implications.
Netanyahu in the courtroom, Photo: Yonatan Zindel, Flash 90
At the end of the day, the question is not whether Pilber wanted to succeed in his job (obviously yes), asked to please the boss Netanyahu (obviously yes), wanted to close the issue of Bezeq and in the process was given various benefits (obviously yes).
The central question is whether Pilber acted as a helpless and reckless puppet, operated by Netanyahu remotely, or as a prudent and independent CEO who, while driven - and knowingly - also voluntarily succeeded in pleasing the minister in charge, but in practice makes matter-of-fact decisions unaffected by instructions And in short: if it is an independent, or obedient and submissive slave who acts in the service of his master and fulfills any instruction given to him.
Pilber is indeed one of the key witnesses in the Netanyahu trial.
Declaring him later in the testimony as a "hostile witness" may divert the pendulum from the path first set for it.
It did not happen.
Despite the intense tweeting of the state witness, a tireless tweet, it is not known if this will happen later.
Such an announcement, if given, could turn the bowl upside down, and place Pilber's testimony as part of his police interrogation as indisputable key evidence.
Turn around
In his interrogation yesterday, Pilber conspicuously tried to shake off what he said as part of his testimony to police.
Thus, by providing peppered interpretations and explanations for statements heard from him in the interrogation room, and thus by raising allegations that things said by the police, and at least some of them, do not reflect the truth.
At certain moments in Pilber's interrogation he seemed to revolve around the main point, but did not reach it.
Days will tell, after the spinning top falls on its side, whether the defendants can say out loud "a great miracle was here," or whether an evidentiary catastrophe that may affect - if not decide - the fate of the entire trial.
Were we wrong?
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