Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu notified Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit on Monday evening that he will attend the hearing related to corruption investigations set for October second, according to the prime minister's attorney Amit Hadad.
and Twitter
Hadad said that he asked the attorney general for an extension last week, but he refused. "We believe that there are considerable factors justifying delaying the hearing. We received the investigation material and have begun to read it. But dozens of forms are missing and if we don’t have a copy of them, we have no way to read them.
"A second thing, in contrast to all other public figures, the committee refuses to allow the prime minister to receive assistance from friends to fund his legal defense," the attorney added. "This means that only I remain to represent the prime minister. For any person to go through so much material, a lot more time is required. Therefore, we turned to the attorney general and said that we will attend the hearing but that it would be right to consider delaying it to a later date."
Last week, following the dispersal of the Knesset and the scheduling of elections for September, Netanyahu's attorneys asked for another delay in the hearing date. But Mandelblit replied that the situation does not justify a further delay and the hearing will take place six months after the investigation material was delivered to the prime minister.
The hearing is intended to allow for an attorney to prepare to present his case with regards to the investigation material; it is not a minor trial.