The State Attorney’s Office has been unable to have Yisrael Einhorn, a former adviser to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, extradited to Israel to stand trial on charges of witness intimidation, it told the Petah Tikva Magistrate’s Court on Sunday, putting the trial against two other advisers to the premier in jeopardy.

Einhorn, along with two other prime ministerial aides, Ofer Golan and Jonatan Urich, were indicted last year on charges of witness intimidation against a key witness in Netanyahu’s criminal trial in 2019.

The trial is due to start in the coming weeks, but the State Attorney’s Office was reported to have told the court that it cannot begin proceedings against Urich and Golan unless Einhorn himself is present, given the central role he is alleged to have played in the incident.

After leaving his post in the Prime Minister’s Office, Einhorn moved to Serbia, where he has worked as an adviser to President Aleksandar Vučić.

He refused both to return to Israel for the purposes of the legal proceedings against him in the witness intimidation case and to answer questions under caution relating to his alleged role in the Bild leaked documents affair and the Qatargate affair. He is a suspect in both cases, as is Urich.

In light of the prosecution’s inability to have Einhorn extradited, Judge Dror Kleitman asked the state attorney’s representatives to inform the court within two weeks if it wishes to proceed with the trial against Golan and Urich or if it will instead withdraw the indictment.

At the time of the alleged witness........

© The Times of Israel