This explanation is in complete contradiction to the facts; I do not accept it; And in light of Saada's deep personal involvement in drafting the agreement with Malka, I find it difficult to accept that this is also Saada's professional position or that this is what the accuser thought at the time of filing the indictment.
As the many evidentiary hearings have taught, the version that Malka gave in his interrogations prior to the filing of the indictment served as central evidence in the framework of the prosecution's evidence – not to mention the most central – also regarding the 11 charges included in the original indictment against the other defendants, and not only with regard to the three charges that were added afterwards. It was the revelations regarding Malka, including the manner in which his statements were made, that led the State Attorney's Office to understand that no weight could be attributed to his testimony – and the discrepancy between the amended and original indictments shows how central his testimony was. I will add, without elaborating, that after I have been exposed to the prosecution's full evidence, it is clear that without Malka's testimony, there is no evidentiary basis for a significant part of the facts alleged in these charges, even prima facie.
The centrality and importance of Malka's testimony vis-à-vis the other defendants was such that after Malka's sentence, the Department for the Investigation of Police invested unprecedented resources and efforts, in accordance with Saada's orders, in accompanying and transporting Malka from his place of detention in the north of the country dozens of times, in order for him to participate in meetings at the department's offices (about ten witness interviews, and other meetings for the purpose of sorting materials), and to appear in court in Jerusalem for dozens of evidentiary sessions and hearings of sorting and filtering files from his mobile phone. This was done by means of employees and a vehicle of the department, and not as is customary through the Nachshon Unit of the Israel Prison Service (see the testimony of Guy Asher, Operations Officer of the DIP, at pp. 21644-21637; as well as his letter to Saada dated January 8, 2017, P/449, in which he warned that "This task will require prosecutors by virtue of various laws to have greater and more resources, and for nothing – this is Nachshon's mission."). The Department for the Investigation of Police even chose to bring Malka to the witness stand as the second prosecution witness (and in the hearing on January 12, 2016, it even debated whether to testify as the first witness on its behalf; see p. 61 of the transcript).