The Israeli musician Yuval Wilner was named Sunday as the suspect in two highly publicized rape cases after the Tel Aviv District Court cleared his name for publication.

The 38-year-old Tel Avivian is accused of raping in 2011 Shaylee Atary, a filmmaker, singer, and later survivor of the October 7, 2023, Hamas massacre. Another woman, Naama Shahar, has also accused him of raping her in October 2022.

Wilner, who is married, resides overseas but returned to Israel for questioning in the cases earlier in May. He was arrested upon arrival due to the suspicions, then transferred to house arrest.

Just before the gag order was lifted, Wilner was released from house arrest Sunday morning, though the court instructed that he remain in Israel for 30 days, and he is banned from making contact with his accusers.

“For fifteen years, I didn’t have the basic right to say the name Yuval Wilner out loud,” Atary said in a statement after the order was lifted. “Not in an interview, not in a post, not even with family members or people close to me. While he continued to live his life with power, money, and respect, I was the one who lived as though his name was explosive, just waiting to blow up my life.”

“This is the moment that I am no longer being asked to pay with my life so that the reputation of someone who brutally raped me remains clean,” she said.

Attorney Moshe Weiss, representing Wilner, said in a statement that his client “will not be judged on the [social] networks and will not be convicted in headlines. He is a person,........

© The Times of Israel