Jerusalem court approves PM request to reduce his testimony from 3 to 2 times per week

The Jerusalem District Court agrees to a request by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to reduce the number of times he must testify in his criminal trial from three times a week, to twice a week, saying it was making its decision based on the information presented to it regarding “the timetable and constraints related to the job of defendant number 1.”

Netanyahu will now testify every Monday and Wednesday.

The court orders that another defense witness will testify every Tuesday instead of Netanyahu to mitigate the delay to the trial, which has now been going for five years.

Earlier on Thursday, a freshly published transcript of a closed-door hearing two weeks ago with Netanyahu and the judges revealed that the prime minister told them it was not possible for him to run the country while spending three days in court every week.

“With all due respect, Basic Law: The Government enables the prime minister to stand trial and to run the country, and the right balance needs to be made… It’s not possible,” Netanyahu told the judges.

During another closed-door session last week in which Netanyahu again requested to reduce the number of hearings per week to two, the prime minister said Israel was in the midst of a “historic turning point” and that changing security circumstances were having implications for the country’s very future.

This, he said, necessitated reducing the number of hearings to twice a week.