Benjamin Netanyahu has asked Israel’s president for a pardon for bribery and fraud charges and an end to a five-year corruption trial, arguing that it would be in the “public interest”.
Isaac Herzog’s office acknowledged receipt of the 111-page submission from the prime minister’s lawyer, and said it had been passed on to the pardons department in the ministry of justice. The president’s legal adviser would also formulate an opinion before Herzog made a decision, it added.
“The office of the president is aware that this is an extraordinary request which carries with it significant implications,” a statement from his office said. “After receiving all of the relevant opinions, the president will responsibly and sincerely consider the request.”
Presidential pardons in Israel have almost never been granted before conviction, with the one notable exception of a 1986 case involving the Shin Bet security service. A pre-emptive pardon of a politician in a corruption case without an admission of guilt would be precedent-setting and highly controversial.
The submission on Sunday comes weeks after Donald Trump wrote to Herzog to ask him to pardon Netanyahu, who has been on trial since 2020 on charges of bribery, fraud and breach of trust, involving alleged political favours for wealthy backers in return for gifts or positive media coverage.
Netanyahu rejects the allegations, and has condemned the case as a “witch-hunt” orchestrated by the media, police and judiciary. His critics have accused him of prolonging the war in Gaza to keep his coalition together so he can stay in office and keep his legal jeopardy at bay, but elections are due next year.
In a short letter included in his legal filing and in a televised statement released on Sunday, Netanyahu argued it was in his personal interest to prove his innocence in court, but that it was in the interest of national unity to cut short the trial, which he claimed was “tearing us apart”.
The prime minister said in the televised statement: “As exonerating evidence that completely disproves the false claims against me is revealed in court, and as it becomes clear that the case against me was built through serious violations, my personal interest was and remains to continue this process to its end, until full acquittal on all counts.
“But the security and political reality, the national interest, demands otherwise. The ongoing trial is tearing us apart from within, fuelling fierce disagreements, and deepening divisions. I am sure, like many others, that ending the trial immediately would help lower tensions and promote the broad reconciliation our country so desperately needs.”
The demand for a pardon without a guilty plea or resignation has the potential to spark a political and constitutional crisis, which the country’s supreme court could ultimately be called on to resolve.
The single significant precedent is a case from nearly 40 years ago, in which Shin Bet officials were accused of covering up the execution of two Palestinian militants involved in a bus hijack. The high court of justice allowed the president at the time, Chaim Herzog – the father of the current president – to issue pre-indictment pardons in the circumstances.
However, legal scholars say it is far from clear that the 1986 case, Barzilai v government of Israel, would provide a precedent for Netanyahu’s corruption trial, especially in the absence of an admission of guilt from the prime minister.
Civil society leaders and opposition leaders made it clear that they would fight any move to grant Netanyahu a pardon.
Yair Lapid, the leader of the Yesh Atid party, sent a message to Herzog on social media, saying: “You cannot grant Netanyahu a pardon without an admission of guilt, an expression of remorse, and an immediate withdrawal from political life.”
“Only the guilty seek pardon,” Yair Golan, the leader of the Democrats party, said in a social media post. “The only exchange deal on the table is that Netanyahu will take responsibility, admit guilt, leave politics, and free the people and the state – only then will unity be achieved among the people.”
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