Court confirms Netanyahu to testify 3 times per week from November, rejecting defense request

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will be required to testify three times a week in his corruption trial starting in November, with the total number of hearings per week bumped up to four, the judges overseeing the case rule, rejecting a request by his lawyers to keep proceedings the way they have been so far.

The expansion of the trial was announced by the Jerusalem District Court last month, citing the need to speed up the process.

The judges say they are not convinced by arguments made by Netanyahu’s attorneys that increasing the pace of the trial will harm his defense, noting that similar arrangements, sometimes with an even faster pace, have been made for large and important cases in the past, such as the Holyland trial in which former prime minister Ehud Olmert was convicted.

The judges add that although in the past they had decided not to increase the number of hearings due to Netanyahu’s complaint that it would take up too much of his time and harm his ability to run the country, they say that the situation is now different.

“At the current juncture, the balance has changed. This is a huge case, and in many ways unprecedented… both in its scope and complexity. The proceedings have been going on for more than five years. We still have a long way to go. The defense is only at the beginning, and is progressing at a slow pace,” the judges say.

“Our duty to rule on the case requires a significant increase in the schedule of the hearings at this stage to four hearings per week,” they write.

The judges add that Netanyahu can still make requests to delay or cancel specific hearings, which the court will consider as and when they are made.

The trial has been going on since 2020, and Netanyahu has been testifying twice a week since December, with countless of these hearings canceled or cut short for various reasons related to the premier’s responsibilities and to his fatigue and illnesses.

The Jerusalem District Court judges have said four hearings per week will be held starting in November, and Netanyahu will testify in three of them until the end of his cross-examination, “in light of the current need to advance the trial.”