Court again rejects request to cut hearings in Netanyahu trial from 4 to 3 per week

The Jerusalem District Court on Wednesday rejected a second request by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s lawyers to hold just three hearings a week in the premier’s ongoing corruption trial, and not four, saying that the defense team did not raise any substantively new arguments from the first time the court decided to add an extra hearing every week, back in September.

The court also pointed out that one of the judges on the three-member panel hearing the case would need to retire in the not-too-distant future, necessitating an increase in pace to the trial, which is already in its sixth year.

The court also rejected the defense team’s claims that it cannot represent Netanyahu four times a week, due to the needs of other clients and their court schedules. It told the prime minister’s lawyers that they had had two months to prepare for the increased number of hearings.

The judges emphasized that they would continue to consider individual requests to delay or cancel hearings, should the need arise, due to Netanyahu’s various responsibilities as prime minister, as they have done regularly throughout his testimony.

And the court rejected the possibility that the defense team could quit as Netanyahu’s lawyers, saying that doing so would “do fundamental harm” to the ability to conduct the trial properly.

All the requests were therefore rejected, and the schedule for Netanyahu’s trial will be four hearings a week, beginning next week, with the prime minister testifying at three hearings, on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays.

Netanyahu has repeatedly sought to reduce the number of hearings per week, and the court has canceled numerous hearings due to the prime minister’s duties and health problems.

The court recently decided to increase the number of hearings per week because of the repeated delays and the amount of time that the trial has already taken — having started in 2020 — and due to the possibility that Netanyahu’s testimony alone could last until April 2026 and that the trial itself would drag on into 2027.

Netanyahu is on trial in three corruption cases. He faces charges of fraud and breach of trust in Case 1000 and Case 2000, and charges of bribery, as well as fraud and breach of trust, in Case 4000.

The premier denied any wrongdoing and said all the charges were fabricated in a political coup led by the police and state prosecution.