The panel of judges overseeing the corruption trial of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reiterated on Monday their suggestion that the prosecution drop the bribery charge against the premier, given that it will be difficult to prove and thus drag out the proceedings.

The judges made the same recommendation exactly three years ago for the same reason, but the prosecution declined to drop the charge. The court has since heard extensive testimony from Netanyahu on the allegations, none of which changed the recommendation. On Monday, the judges told the court that their recommendation from June 2023 “remains unchanged.”

During the hearing in the Jerusalem District Court on Monday about expanding sessions to five days a week in the long-running trial, chief defense attorney Amit Hadad suggested the judges were treating Netanyahu in a manner similar to Adolf Eichmann, a key architect of the Holocaust who was captured by the Mossad in Argentina in 1960, put on trial in Israel, convicted and executed.

“No trial has ever been conducted five days a week, only the Eichmann trial,” Hadad argued, insisting that the proposed schedule was unrealistic.

He also warned that keeping the bribery charge on the docket would draw out the trial.

“If the bribery charge remains, we’ll have hundreds of witnesses here. There’s no chance we would finish by March 2028,” he said, according to Hebrew media reports.

Judge Rivka Friedman-Feldman, one of the three judges on the panel hearing Netanyahu’s case, is slated for mandatory retirement in March 2028. All judges in Israel are forced to retire when they turn 70 years old.

“I told the prime minister we are facing dire straits, I have no way to provide proper defense,” Hadad said, as quoted by the Ynet news........

© The Times of Israel