Prosecutors under pressure to drop Netanyahu bribery charges
A report this week that judges presiding over the criminal trial of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have counseled prosecutors against pursuing bribery charges has energized calls within the governing coalition to expedite a contentious overhaul of the judiciary, saying the affair proves the need for reforms.
According to reports, the judges in the premier’s corruption trial convened with state prosecutors and Netanyahu’s defense team in their chambers earlier this week in order to discuss the complexities involved in substantiating the bribery charge against the prime minister in Case 4000, the most significant of the three cases against Netanyahu that make up the trial.
While the charge of bribery is the most significant faced by Netanyahu, he additionally faces charges of fraud and breach of trust in that case, as well as in two other cases.
Economy Minister Nir Barkat said Friday that the reports showed the need for the government’s planned judicial overhaul, which will place constraints on the Attorney General’s independence but does not include any major elements that would impact criminal prosecutions.
“The prosecutor’s office must be supervised. This is a matter of consensus and there is no better example than what happened now — for five years the prosecutor’s office has dragged us through this awful, terrible experience,” Barkat told Channel 13 news.
“I hope that the State Attorney’s Office will come to its senses and that the opposition will also begin to understand that criticism of the State Attorney’s Office is in the national interest of all of us, and should be shouted to the heavens,” said Barkat, a member of Netanyahu’s Likud party.
He warned that a lack of oversight would foster corruption, echoing a charge leveled at the ruling coalition for pursuing changes to the judiciary that will strip the court’s oversight mandate and leave government power unchecked.
“The State Attorney’s Office is an unchecked body and it does heavy damage to the people of Israel,” Barkat charged.