Ex-Shin Bet, air force chiefs: Spyware panel aims to obstruct PM trial

The police spyware investigation committee established by the cabinet on Sunday was designed to interfere with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ongoing corruption trials and should be frozen, ex-Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) director Nadav Argaman and former IAF commander Amir Eshel said Wednesday in a petition to the High Court of Justice.

There was no reason why the committee should be created now, when the prime minister is facing legal proceedings, and the panel’s purpose is suspicious, they said.

The committee would be reviewing the use of spyware against citizens and officials from 2017-2022, which would cover the investigation into Netanyahu, the petitioners said. Netanyahu had called to “investigate the investigators” in 2019, they said.

Is the police spyware committee interfering in Netanyahu's trial?

Another justice should chair the committee, the petitioners said, adding that there was fear of bias because retired judge Moshe Drori had heavily criticized the investigations and proceedings against the prime minister.

Netanyahu demonstrated foreknowledge of the committee’s purpose, the petitioners said, as made evident by his abstention from the cabinet vote to form the panel so as to not violate his conflict-of-interest agreement.

A 2020 conflict-of-interest agreement conditioned Netanyahu’s formation of a government and stipulated that he could not be involved in the appointment of law-enforcement, judges, and legal officials who could influence his case.

The alleged motive behind the committee was also evidenced by the haste of the establishment committee in the face of the state comptroller’s pending review of law enforcement’s spyware purchases and operations, the petitioners said.

 The committee could endanger state security by revealing secret tools and methods used by Shin Bet and other security agencies, they said, adding that there was certain “top secret” information that needed to be kept out of documents available to the committee.

The damage to state security would outweigh any benefit that could arise from the work, the petitioners said. The Shin Bet and the National Security Council had also expressed reservations about the committee’s formation, they said.

The petition cited the Attorney-General Office’s letter on Sunday that said the committee had no authority to interfere in pending criminal cases, especially Netanyahu’s trial.

The committee had been authorized by the government to inspect the conduct of the police and the State Attorney’s Office in the “Pegasus affair,” in which Ciphon malware had been used from 2015 to 2021 to infect 1,086 to 1,800 phones and extract information beyond warrants, such as accessing notes, call history, messages, and other applications.