Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has asked President Yitzchak Herzog to grant him a pardon, the Israeli president’s office announced Sunday. US President Donald Trump also requested a pardon for the Israeli prime minister in a letter to Herzog in November. TASR informs about it according to Sky News and The Times of Israel (TOI) news portal.
The documents included a 111-page request from Netanyahu’s lawyer Amit Haddad and a letter signed by the prime minister himself, TOI clarifies, according to which the presidential office has released the full text of the request.
Hercog’s office said the prime minister’s lawyer had forwarded the request to the legal department of the presidential residence. The Department of Justice’s pardons department “will obtain the opinions of all relevant authorities in the department,” the president’s office said. The department will then send its recommendations to Herzog’s legal counsel.
“The Office of the President is aware that this is an extraordinary request that carries significant consequences,” the Office of the President said in a statement. “After receiving all relevant opinions, the president will consider the request responsibly and honestly,” the office added.
TOI explains that the President has the power to pardon convicted persons and, in very rare cases, persons before the end of the trial, if it is considered to be in public interest.
Netanyahu said this month that he would not seek clemency in his corruption case if it meant admitting guilt in the case.
The prime minister of the Jewish state is on trial in one case of bribery and three cases of accusations of corruption, which he denies and calls his prosecution politically motivated. His trial began in 2020 and is far from over, according to TOI.
The US president also asked for a pardon for Netanyahu. He did so in October in the Israeli parliament, where he asked Herzog: “Why don’t you pardon him?”. Subsequently, in November, Trump sent a letter to his Israeli counterpart asking him to consider pardoning the prime minister. The American president wrote in the letter that he respects the independence of the Israeli judiciary, but considers the trial of Netanyahu to be a “politically unjustified prosecution”.
In an interview with the media in September, the Israeli president indicated that he might grant Netanyahu a pardon, as the prosecution of the prime minister “hits Israeli society hard.”
12 20 dom
