Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has asked the country’s President, Isaac Herzog, for a pardon over corruption cases he has been battling.
The president’s office said Herzog would receive opinions from justice officials before considering the request “which carries with it significant implications”.
Netanyahu has been standing trial for the past five years on charges of bribery, fraud and breach of trust in connection with three separate cases. He denies wrongdoing.
He said in a video message that he would have preferred to see the process to the end but national interest “demanded otherwise”.
The Israeli opposition says he should admit guilt before seeking a pardon.
Early this month, US President Donald Trump urged Herzog to “fully pardon” Netanyahu.
At the time, Herzog made it clear that anyone seeking a pardon had to submit a formal request.
On Sunday, his office released the request and a letter by Netanyahu himself, in light of “the importance of this extraordinary request and its implications”.
It offered no indication of when the president might reach a decision.
In 2020, Benjamin Netanyahu became the first serving Israeli prime minister to stand trial:
- In the first case, prosecutors alleged that he had received gifts – mainly cigars and bottles of champagne – from powerful businessmen in exchange for favours
- He is accused in a second case of offering to help improve the circulation of an Israeli newspaper in exchange for positive coverage
- And in a third, prosecutors have alleged that he promoted regulatory decisions favourable to the controlling shareholder of an Israeli telecoms company in exchange for positive coverage by a news website.
Netanyahu has pleaded not guilty to all the charges and branded the trial as a “witch hunt” by political opponents.
In Sunday’s defiant video message, he claimed that the cases against him were collapsing, but that the process was tearing Israel apart from within.
“I am certain, as are many others in the nation, that an immediate end to the trial would greatly help lower the flames and promote broad reconciliation – something our country desperately needs,” the prime minister added.
Netanyahu said he was being required to testify before the court three times a week, describing that as “an impossible demand.”
A pardon, he insisted, would help Israel fend off threats and seize opportunities by fostering “national unity”.
His political opponents have accused Netanyahu of attempting to conflate his interests with those of the state.
Opposition leader Yair Lapid said there could be no pardon without an admission of guilt, an expression of remorse and Netanyahu’s immediate retirement from political life.
Yair Golan, a left-wing politician and former deputy commander of Israeli forces, said “only the guilty” sought pardon.
According to Israel’s Basic Law, the president “has the power to pardon criminals and reduce or transmute [alter] their sentence”.
However, Israel’s High Court of Justice has previously ruled that the president can pardon an individual before they are convicted if it is in the public interest or if there are extreme personal circumstances.
Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud party and his supporters have always supported a pardon for their leader.
But for many in Israel – especially on the left – it would be seen as another move away from the country’s sense of itself as a robust democracy with a strong legal system.
Public concerns over the government’s plans for judicial reform brought hundreds of thousands out on to the streets in protest for many months before the Hamas-led attacks of 7 October 2023 which triggered the most recent Gaza war.
In a separate case, the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant last year for Netanyahu and former Israeli defence minister Yoav Gallant over war crimes and crimes against humanity that have allegedly been committed during the war between Israel and Hamas.
Netanyahu has condemned the move as “antisemitic”.
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