Benjamin Netanyahu asks Israel’s president for pardon in corruption case | Benjamin Netanyahu
Benjamin Netanyahu has asked the Israeli president for an amnesty for bribery and fraud charges and an end to his five-year corruption trial, arguing it would be in the “public interest.”
Isaac Herzog’s office confirmed receipt of the 111-page petition from the prime minister’s lawyer and said the document had been forwarded to the justice department’s pardon office. He added that the president’s legal counsel will also form an opinion before Herzog makes a decision.
“The President’s office is aware that this is an extraordinary request with significant consequences,” his office said in a statement. “The President will consider the request responsibly and candidly after receiving all relevant views.”
Sunday’s appeal comes weeks after Donald Trump wrote a letter to Herzog asking him to pardon Netanyahu, who has been on trial since 2020 on charges of bribery, fraud and breach of trust.
Netanyahu denied the allegations and condemned the case as a “witch hunt” carried out by the media, police and judiciary.
His critics have accused him of prolonging the war in Gaza to keep his coalition together so he can stay in office and keep legal danger at bay, but elections are due next year.
In a brief letter included in his legal filing and in a televised statement on Sunday, Netanyahu argued that it was in his personal interest to prove his innocence in court, but that it was in the interest of national unity to cut short the trial, which he claimed was “tearing us apart.”
“As exculpatory evidence emerges in court that completely refutes the false allegations against me and it becomes clear that the case against me is based on serious violations, my personal interest was and remains to continue this process to the end until a full acquittal of all charges is achieved,” the Prime Minister said in his televised statement. he said.
“But security and political reality, national interests require otherwise,” he added. “The ongoing litigation is tearing us apart from within, fueling violent disagreements and deepening divisions. I am confident, like so many others, that an immediate end to the litigation will help reduce tensions and promote the broad reconciliation that our country so desperately needs.”
The request for a pardon without a guilty plea or resignation has the potential to trigger a political and constitutional crisis that the nation’s supreme court may ultimately be called upon to resolve.
“Only criminals ask for amnesty,” Yair Golan, leader of the opposition Democrats party, said in a social media post.
“The only exchange deal on the table is for Netanyahu to take responsibility, admit guilt, abandon politics and liberate the people and the state; only then can unity among the people be achieved.”
