Postponement of the Prime Minister’s trial again: The next hearing in the trial of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, scheduled for next Wednesday, has been canceled due to the full closure. No new date has yet been set for that hearing.
Read more in Calcalist:
The composition of the judges in the Netanyahu trial. Right: Moshe Bar-Am, Rivka Friedman-Feldman and Oded Shaham Screenshot The judges’ statement read: “Following the notice of the Director of Courts regarding the adjustment of the format of activities in the courts and dealing with the corona virus, and given the large number of attendees coming to the hearing and the general closure, the regular hearing on January 13 is canceled.”
The prime minister was scheduled to appear on January 13 in the courtrooms of Justices Rivka Feldman-Friedman, Moshe Bar-Am and Oded Shaham.
Yesterday, Defense Minister and Justice Bnei Gantz met with the head of the Bar Association, Adv. Avi Chimi, together with the Attorney General, Dr. Avichai Mandelblit and the director of the courts, Judge Yigal Marzel – and discussed the conduct of the courts during the tight closure.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The date for the retrial has not been set Photo: Yuval Chen At the meeting, it was agreed, among other things, that the position of the Bar Association and the public of lawyers – who demanded the closure of the courts – should be taken into account. Ganz decided that there would be no hearings at all in various non-urgent proceedings that are multi-participant. The Netanyahu judges were the ones who could determine whether the hearing would take place – and they chose not to hold it due to the restrictions.
On Wednesday, while Netanyahu’s defense attorneys announced that they were considering filing a new immunity application in the face of the amended indictment filed against the prime minister and due to the request to postpone the response to the indictment, Ganz tweeted, who also holds the case after Avi Nissenkorn’s dismissal: “Netanyahu, don’t worry. The courts will remain open – to me. ”
Last Wednesday, the panel of judges at the trial rejected Netanyahu’s request to postpone the date of the response to the indictment in the Alps cases. “After reviewing the arguments of the respondent’s counsel, we did not find that there is reason to postpone the date of the response to the indictment,” the judges wrote. “The original indictment has been in the hands of the defendants for about a year. It can be assumed that the filing of the amended indictment requires adjustments in the response to the indictment, but it does not justify postponing the hearing. So does the regular hearing on the appeal filed by the defendants.”
A few hours earlier, Netanyahu had submitted his request through his defense attorneys, stating that another month was required to file a response to the amended indictment. Defense attorneys Boaz Ben-Zur and Amit Haddad stated in their application that they were examining the possibility that the amendment of the indictment would allow Netanyahu to be granted immunity: “These days, the known legal significance of amending the indictment in relation to the MK Immunity Law is being examined. The applicant maintains all his claims on the matter. “