Ilan Yeshua, former CEO of Israeli web portal Walla, has revealed that he and a senior editor compared Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to North Korean head of state Kim Jong-un, The Jerusalem Post reports.
This came to light while Yeshua was speaking to the Jerusalem District Court, which is presiding over Netanyahu’s public corruption trial.
According to the newspaper, Yeshua said that he and Walla editor Avi Alkalai referred to Netanyahu as “Kim” due to them feeling pressured to “tilt coverage” in favour of the prime minister.
"All the requests of politicians over 13 years might be equivalent to one week of requests from the prime minister and his wife [over three years]," the ex-CEO reportedly said, adding that the quality of said politicians’ requests "was not as intense as what was here" with the Netanyahus.
Yeshua also spoke about how "at the end of 2012, requests started to come from [Bezeq and Walla owner Shaul] Elovitch to favour positive articles for Prime Minister Netanyahu and his wife, Sara," as well as to take down unflattering articles and to attack Netanyahu’s competitors, the newspaper adds.
After the delays due to the Israeli elections in March, the corruption trial of PM Netanyahu resumed this week.
The PM is facing multiple corruption investigations and could be staring down the barrel of up to 10 years in prison for bribery and up to three years for fraud and breach of trust, if convicted. He denies all accusations.