Reversing earlier testimony, Milchan says he and Netanyahu are BFF, exchanged gifts

Continuing his blockbuster testimony for a second week in the trial of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Hollywood mogul Arnon Milchan tells the court that any gifts exchanged were done mutually so in a spirit of camaraderie.

Offering few words, Milchan confirms a version of events laid out by defense lawyer Amit Hadad, who is seeking to refute charges that the premier’s acceptance of expensive gifts from the producer and others constituted fraud and breach of trust.

Hadad says that the Netanyahu and his wife Sara and Milchan and his wife Amanda were great friends. “You were there for all the big life events. You were there to see each others’ kids grow up,” he says.

“Confirm for me that you thought the gift-giving was mutual,” Haddad says, to which Milchan replies “There was a certain mutuality.”

Hadad: Until the investigations started, you never thought to even think how much the gifts cost.

Milchan: Never.

Hadad: Confirm that the prime minister never complained that you didn’t come bearing cigars.

Milchan: Didn’t happen.

Hadad: That your conversations were talks of closeness and amity.

Milchan: Definitely.

Hadad then treats the court to a lengthy soliloquy about how everyone knows that Netanyahu and Milchan are best friends, which Milchan also confirms (“like family”), adding as a cherry on top that he did not hide the gifts because there was no reason to hide them.

As for code words given to the gifts, Milchan explains those away as “silliness between friends.”

The testimony appears to contradict Milchan’s earlier account of being frustrated at the systemic way he was expected to ply the Netanyahus with cigars, champagne and jewelry, with no gifts in return.

Queried about why he told the court he wasn’t friends with Netanyahu, Milchan calls it a “strange phrase.”

“I don’t know why I said it. He’s a friend to this day,” he says.

I don’t know why exactly I said it or how [it happened]

Hadad proposes as a theory that perhaps when the cops came knocking and presented him with a less than complimentary portrait of Netanyahu “you got worked up and thought ‘how did my good friend Bibi let it get to this,’ and so added things that never happened.”

“I don’t know why I said [it or] how [it happened]. I was under pressure,” Milchan replies.