After attorneys for Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu refused to accept the hearing material against the prime minister on Monday evening, Netanyahu informed the attorney general on Tuesday that he intends to schedule a hearing, and that the attorneys will collect the evidence after Netanyahu agreed on the amount of their fee for reading and studying the hearing material.

Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit confirmed Netanyahu’s announcement and said in a statement that “in order to advance the hearing process and set a date accordingly, a number of representatives of the Prime Minister arrived at the offices of the Tel Aviv District Attorney’s Office and collected the core of the investigation materials regarding their client.”

“In addition, the defense attorneys clarified their intention to contact the Attorney General’s office by May 20th in order to coordinate the date of the hearing, and it is of great importance that the hearing be held.”

As noted, the legal advisor sent a response to PM Netanyahu’s lawyers this week, but they refused to receive the response.

“This refusal is puzzling,” the Ministry of Justice said in a statement, announcing that “the attorney general will consider his steps accordingly.” It was further reported that under these circumstances, the letter was also sent to the lawyers via email.

The statement said that the attorney general responded to a request from the prime minister’s attorneys on the eve of Memorial Day, in which they announced that their client was interested in holding a hearing and presented various requests regarding the investigation materials.

In his reply, the attorney general stated that he saw great importance in holding the hearing, and, as has been said more than once, as long as the procedure actually takes place, he intends to carry it out with an open heart and a willing soul.

In their letter, the defense attorneys requested that a new timetable be set for the hearing, which corresponds to your assessment of the time required for proper preparation for the proceeding.

The attorney general made it clear that there was a great deal of difficulty in claiming large quantities of material or about the time required to study said material, especially because the lawyers chose not to receive the investigation material and to begin studying it for so long.

However, he made it clear that the defense attorneys were entitled to request various requests in connection with the hearing, and that these matters would be considered on their merits, taking into account the totality of the circumstances, as was done by the prosecution as a matter of course.

The State Attorney’s Office stated that in order to promote the process of hearing the investigation files in question, in relation to each of the suspects, the core of the investigation material collected on magnetic media was copied, in order to facilitate the orientation of those suspected of the investigation material.

(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)