Eran Shacham-Shavit, the authorized adviser to the Israel Securities Authority who turned embroiled in scandal after a sequence of leaked textual content messages appeared to point out him colluding with the choose presiding over the Bezeq corruption case, on Tuesday signed a plea deal with the Civil Service Commission.
Under the phrases of the settlement, Shacham-Shavit will return to the investigations division of the Israel Securities Authority on Wednesday, the place he will probably be severely reprimanded, and demoted for a 12 months. After that point he will probably be permitted to renew his earlier place because the authorized adviser to the Investigations Department of the ISA and to characterize the ISA on authorized issues.
Oded Savoray, lawyer for Shacham-Shavit, responded to the ruling: “The investigation materials, including the full WhatsApp correspondence, convinced the Commission and the State Attorney’s Office that there is a significant gap between the way things were portrayed in the media and what happened in reality.”
Shacham-Shavit was engaged on Case 4000 when Channel 10 News broadcast messages despatched between him and Judge Ronit Pozsky-Katz, who was presiding over the case on the time.
In a WhatsApp chat, Shacham-Shavit advised Judge Ronit Pozsky-Katz that the prosecution would search the discharge of some suspects however not others. “Try and act surprised” in the courtroom, Shacham-Shavit wrote.
Judge Ronit Pozsky-Katz. (Judiciary of Israel)
“I’m practicing my surprised face,” Pozsky-Katz responds.
In one other chat, Shacham-Shavit wrote that relating to the suspects “[Bezeq CEO] Stella [Handler] and Iris [Elovitch, Shaul’s wife], we will ask for a few more days tomorrow. They will request three days, but you can definitely, definitely give two days.”
“You’re continuing to reveal everything to me and I’ll have to act really, really surprised,” Pozsky-Katz responds, apparently jokingly.
Shacham-Shavit later claimed that he and Judge Pozsky-Katz weren't beforehand acquainted, and stated he was solely in direct contact together with her relating to the logistics of the case as a result of he didn't have an assistant on the time.
The dialog occurred earlier than the suspects’ remand hearings in the so-called Case 4000, the place they have been ostensibly given an alternative to make their case earlier than the choose determined whether or not they are often launched from custody and beneath what circumstances.
In a try to elucidate the correspondence, Shacham-Shavit later revealed that police and the ISA have been divided on easy methods to method the rapidly ballooning corruption case involving Israel’s largest telecom firm. He stated that the ISA, versus the police, favored releasing among the lesser suspects in the case, resembling senior Bezeq govt Amikam Shorer, and the son of Bezeq’s controlling shareholder, Or Elovitch.
Following publication of the chat Pozsky-Katz was faraway from deliberate hearings in the case, and in April a disciplinary courtroom for judges discovered her responsible of unbecoming conduct. No date has been set for the sentencing.
Case 4000 includes suspicions that the chairman and controlling shareholder of the telecommunications big Bezeq, Shaul Elovitch, ordered the Walla information web site, which he owns, to grant constructive protection to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his household, in alternate for the prime minister allegedly advancing laws benefiting Bezeq and Elovitch.