The legal team of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu won't be able to withstand the workload and properly represent him in his criminal trial if his hearing schedule is expanded to four days a week, Netanyahu's lawyer Amit Haddad told the presiding judges on Thursday.
Hadad requested from the Jerusalem District Court Judges Rivka Friedman-Feldman, Moshe Bar-Am and Oded Shaham to meet with Netanyahu to discuss the implications of the decision.
Earlier this week, the judges announced that starting November 2, the hearings will take place four days a week. Netanyahu will testify three days of the week, while on the fourth, the court will hear testimonies from other witnesses brought forward by the defense. The judges said the decision was made “due to the need to move the case along.”
Netanyahu is on trial in three cases, on charges of fraud, bribery, and breach of trust. He has pleaded not guilty to all three, in the storm of a case that began in 2020.
The hearings paused when the courts went on summer recess on July 21 - they are scheduled to return on September 5. The trial is due to resume on September 6, with the expanded court appearances kicking in about a month later, after the High Holy Days.
Tel Aviv District Court
The judges requested that authorities examine the possibility of moving the hearings from the Tel Aviv District Court to the Beit Shemesh District Court. The judges had been asked to move the hearings to Tel Aviv when Netanyahu began testifying, due to security concerns.
“The defense team is already spread thin and includes only three lawyers... This will severely harm the defense of the prime minister as well as the legal team on a personal level,” said Hadad.
So far, Netanyahu has testified six times in the cross-examination section of the trial. The direct examination took 35 sessions to complete.