Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and his wife Sara appeared Tuesday in the Tel Aviv Magistrates Court for a hearing in the libel case he submitted against Yediot Aharonot reporter Yigal Sarna.
Netanyahu is suing Sarna for 280,000 NIS in damages after Sarna wrote a post on his Facebook page in which he described a nocturnal trip of the Netanyahu couple in which Sara Netanyahu "threw" her husband out the car in the middle of the Tel-Aviv-Jerusalem highway.
The Netanyahus submitted the suit claiming that the post was false and harmed their reputation.
"I don't know if she threw him out or whether he left of his own accord," testified Sarna in court and claimed that the security officers had to separate between the Netanyahus.
Sarna said he heard about the incident from a "friend who heard from a friend" and that they are not willing to testify in court. "I can't know if a person is speaking the truth or not. I checked with a number of friends, one of them a senior member of the GSS [General Security Services]," he said.
Sarna claims that the "kernel of truth is that there was a quarrel and the Prime Minister's convoy stopped, Sara told Netanyahu to leave the car and then a decision how they would continue after their quarrel. Netanyahu got out the car."
Netanyahu said that Sarna was talking about a "case which never happened. Sarna publicized ridiculous, abnormal and malicious defamations about me."
"It was also claimed that my wife controls the security establishment in the State of Israel. This is ridiculous,absurd. There is a limit to everything. It reflects on the country and creates illusions about the government and security arrangements in Israel. It is wrong and false," said the prime minister.