Part One: The Facts
- The relationship between the parties
- This lawsuit deals with various publications by the defendant, which were made during 2015 and afterwards, in which the plaintiff was portrayed as an arch-villain, as a criminal heading a criminal organization, as a spy, as a thief, as a traitor and as a murderer. This play, according to the plaintiff, was made under the guise of publishing a fictional story, but the identity of the plaintiff as that person is clear.
An examination of these arguments requires a description of the relationship between the parties, which preceded those publications.
- The plaintiff is an Israeli citizen who has been living in Europe for many years. The plaintiff was in the past (so he testifies about himself) an entrepreneur in the real estate business, and among his occupations he is also a researcher and lecturer in intelligence matters at the Faculty of Political Science at the University of Sofia in Bulgaria. The plaintiff is also a member of the board of directors of a company from Switzerland called CCI - Competitive Intelligence (hereinafter: "CCI").
The defendant is also an Israeli citizen, writer and journalist who works in the field of Israeli popular culture.
- The plaintiff and the defendant have known each other for many years, since the 1990s. Over the years, business relations were established between the parties, which included the plaintiff's involvement in the defendant's family dispute, and later also cooperation in the purchase of a property in Bulgaria.
- During or around 2013, disputes arose between the parties regarding the purchase of the property in Bulgaria. The defendant complained to the plaintiff that he had breached his obligations to him and claimed a debt to the plaintiff for the money that the defendant had invested in that transaction in Bulgaria. The parties did not reach an agreement, the relationship between them was severed, and during 2018 the defendant filed a lawsuit against the plaintiff (A. 32392-11-18; "the previous claim"), in which he petitioned to charge the plaintiff with compensation in the sum of approximately ILS 802,042. The plaintiff, for his part, filed a counterclaim, in which he claimed that the defendant had not fulfilled his obligations to him, had not returned money that the plaintiff had lent him, and that the defendant should be obligated to pay the sum of ILS 800,000.
The investigation of the previous claim ended with a settlement on January 17, 2023, after the filing of this claim.
- The Ottoman Settlement [Old Version] 1916Publications
- 12-34-56-78 Chekhov v. State of Israel, Isr. 51 (2)During 2015 (on or about the month of June) chapters from a book written by the defendant and titled: "The Bulgarian Fraud" (hereinafter: "The Book").
The plot of the book was described by the defendant as follows (June 2015 publication, Appendix 1 to the statement of claim):