Former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu His petition for a corruption trial is said to reach a bargain, which will mark an unexpected hasty end to his turbulent political career and re-emerge in Israeli politics.
Israeli The media on Sunday was dominated by news of Netanyahu, the leader of the Likud party and the leader of the opposition. He was ousted last year from a 12-year government, Has reached advanced negotiations with the Attorney General’s Office.
In the reported agreement, Netanyahu will plead guilty to two counts of breach of trust, resulting in suspended imprisonment and a few months’ imprisonment being converted into social service.
The main point of Attorney General Avichai Mandelblitt’s persuasion on the charge of moral turmoil appears – a formal announcement that Netanyahu wants to avoid it because it could prevent him from seven years in political life.
The former prime minister has been accused of trading preferential treatment to a major Israeli telecommunications company in exchange for positive articles on its Wala news site. He is accused of being the defendant in a second case involving a request for favorable coverage, and a third is accused of accepting gifts worth hundreds of thousands of dollars from wealthy friends.
The 72-year-old has rejected calls to step down after being indicted in 2019, using the platform to repeatedly lash out at law enforcement, the media and the courts for conducting a “witch hunt” against him.
Netanyahu’s trial is set to begin in 2020, with the country embroiled in a two – year political crisis following four elections and a stalemate over voters’ leadership and indictment.
The lawsuits against him were expected to drag on for years – but the former prime minister’s legal committee appears to have decided to file a petition, as Mandel Blitz’s attorney general’s term expires later this month and is unlikely to replace him with Netanyahu’s lawsuits. The bargain ends.
Retired Supreme Court President Aaron Barak, a longtime ally of Netanyahu, is said to have acted as a liaison between the former prime minister and public prosecutors. Speaking to the Ynet news website, he said of his role in the talks: “In my view, this is a unique allegation and investigation that is causing division in the country. In an effort to heal that rift, a plea bargain is the preferred option. This position is favorable and important to the State of Israel.
A plea deal that Netanyahu has been banned from for many years in politics will effectively end his life.
This will trigger a leadership rivalry for Likud and its fall will resonate in unpredictable ways. Likud could go into a civil war over the choice of a new chair, thwarting attempts to destabilize the multi-party coalition government that took office last June.
However, if the party fully agrees with a new leader, right-wing elements of the ruling coalition may rescind the current arrangement and consider favoring a government that is politically compatible with the new Likud chair.
On Sunday, the daily newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth quoted Likud as saying that Netanyahu had “switched to low gear” after keeping secret talks with his party secret in recent months.
The former prime minister said, “Less attention, less focus, he did not attend the Knesset plenum meetings much, he canceled factional meetings. The only thing he did was to post childish videos on TikTok attacking senior members of the party.
Netanyahu is also considering making a deal on his corruption allegations Compromise in defamation suit against his predecessor As Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert.
Netanyahu has demanded 837,000 shekels (£ 197,000) in damages from Ligud leader Olmert over allegations he made in interviews that his wife Sarah and eldest son Yair – also a right-wing public figure – were mentally ill.
At a hearing last week, Judge Amit Yariv suggested that Olmert’s comments were more than true – a compromise made by a spokesman for the Netanyahu family was acceptable, although there was no immediate indication that Olmert would accept it.
With the exception of Netanyahu, Olmert is the only Israeli prime minister to face trial on corruption charges. He was convicted in 2015 and served two-thirds of his 27-month sentence for fraud.
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