The first lawsuit was filed against Gil Ofarim for accusing an employee of the “Westin” hotel in Leipzig of anti-Semitic insults. Now the singer has been charged with fraud again. Ofarim’s lawyers speak of a “high-visibility show trial”.
“False affidavit in place of two cases”
The charge is based on “false affidavit in place of two cases,” according to the Leipzig Regional Court. This is both fraud and attempted fraud. According to the public prosecutor’s office, Ofarim is said to have tried to ban press publications about him and the case in the “Westin” hotel. He also submitted two applications for temporary injunctions to the district courts of Leipzig and Cologne. According to the Leipzig district court, Ofarim is said to have “untruthfully swore in oath that he had never said that the video he created should ‘go viral'”.
Lawyers speak of a “show trial”
In addition, he is said to have “repeated what the public prosecutor saw as incorrect statements about the words of the hotel employee”. However, the new allegations will only be valid if the singer actually lied about the first charge in the hotel case. The further procedure for the new situation is not yet known. The public prosecutor’s office has also “not yet made any decisions on an opening hearing”.
Ofarim’s lawyers, on the other hand, speak of a “high-visibility show trial”. This is probably considered necessary to “negotiate an anti-Semitic statement between two participants and a statement-against-statement situation of a few seconds”. The location of the process with a large criminal chamber would speak for this. “A large criminal division is otherwise only provided for exceptionally serious crimes such as murder and manslaughter,” the lawyers continued.
Transfer of the localization to another court
The Leipzig Regional Court has now declared this location to a higher-ranking court with “the special importance of the matter”. Because of this, the lawyers suspect that an attempt is being made “to wash the city of Leipzig and thus also Saxony clean of the confirmation of a common prejudice”. Furthermore, they believe that “apparently no finding of truth under the rule of law is in the foreground” and that “such an approach does not make a contribution against everyday anti-Semitism, from which no federal state can acquit itself”.