Netanyahu’s attorney asks Mandelblit if he sought to save democracy by indicting PM; court to decide whether he must answer

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s defense attorney Amit Hadad asks former attorney general Avichai Mandelblit about a comment he reportedly made to prosecutor Yehudit Tirosh implying that there was political importance to indicting the prime minister.

Hadad is questioning Mandelblit in the Jerusalem District Court over his decision-making process in indicting Netanyahu in three cases on corruption charges.

“Did you say to prosecutor Yehudit Tirosh ‘Netanyahu will lead to a regime change like in Hungary and Poland? Do you prefer to be in a case that will save democracy or a prosecutor in a dictatorship?'” Hadad asks Mandelblit.

Tirosh, one of the prosecutors present in court, strongly objects to the question insisting that there is no scope for questioning the motivations of the attorney general within the scope of Netanyahu’s trial, and saying that the trial is not “an administrative process” or a “commission of inquiry into the prosecution.”

After lengthy deliberation in chambers, the judges question Hadad on the source of the quote and eventually decide that Mandelblit is not immediately required to answer the question and that they will rule on the matter.