The Jerusalem District Court on Friday rejected Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s request for a two-week hiatus in his graft trial after the State Attorney’s Office said it opposed the move.
In a statement, Justice Rivka Friedman-Feldman said the request, submitted by Netanyahu’s defense attorney Amit Hadad, “does not present a detailed basis or reason that might justify canceling evidentiary hearings.”
Hadad had argued Thursday that the premier required the two-week break to devote his time to “diplomatic, national and security issues of the first order,” in the wake of the recent war with Iran, which ended with a ceasefire earlier this week.
His motion came as reports abounded that Israel and the US were working on plans for a comprehensive deal to also end the war in Gaza as well as reach normalization agreements with further Arab countries, though there was no official confirmation of such developments.
In response to the request, the State Attorney’s Office had said that “The broad reasons detailed in the request cannot justify canceling two weeks of hearings, especially in the run-up to the [summer] recess, after the court already accepted previous requests from the defendant and slowed down the pace of the defendant’s questioning so that his testimony is heard only twice a week.
The prosecutor opposes the request.”
