Netanyahu Offers Surprising Defense in Trial

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on Wednesday requested yet another stay in his trial on charges of bribery, fraud and breach of trust, presenting interesting claims that may not go over well at his Balfour Street residence. In his appeal for delaying the witness hearing part of his trial, Netanyahu explained that the indictment presented by the prosecution wrongly attributed to him several transgressions that should actually have been ascribed to his wife and son. The state “has conjured a novel legal entity called ‘Netanyahu and his family’ or ‘Netanyahu and his wife,’ treating the prime minister and his relatives as though they were one,” Netanyahu’s lawyers complained. Prosecution and defense council will present their final arguments at a hearing scheduled for November 29, after which the court will decide whether to proceed with the witness-hearing phase. Netanyahu is accused of severe crimes in three separate cases, in which he allegedly accepted gifts, expensive cigars and positive press coverage in several news outlets in return for legal changes, the abolishment of regulations, and other arrangements benefiting communications tycoons and newspaper publishers to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars.