Prosecution Tells Netanyahu Trial Judges Attorney General Will Not Appear

Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara will not come to the Jerusalem District Court for the direct discussion that the judges in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's trial had raised, prosecutor Yehudit Tirosh told the court on Wednesday, November 11. Tirosh said the prosecutors in the courtroom are authorized to act for the attorney general in the case. She said the team regularly passes on to Baharav-Miara what happens at the hearings, including the judges' remarks, and that the deputy state attorney is expected to attend in the coming weeks as the prosecution's most senior representative in court. "A situation in which the attorney general comes to court while the prosecution team and the senior prosecutors are here is not right for the working procedures of Israel's prosecution system," Tirosh said. She added that if the court was steering the case toward an agreement or a settlement, the doors of the attorney general and State Attorney Amit Aisman remain open to direct dialogue. She said Netanyahu had chosen not to respond to the prosecution's positive answer to an earlier proposal by the President, and recalled that the attorney general had previously refused mediation. Netanyahu's lawyer, Amit Hadad, told the judges they have the authority to summon her. "That the attorney general does not want to come here, she can certainly be summoned," he said, noting that the Supreme Court had recently summoned the state attorney to a hearing. People close to Baharav-Miara said there was no particular reason for her to attend, since the prosecutors are in direct contact with her. On Thursday, November 5, Hadad and Jacques Chen, the lawyer for co-defendant Shaul Elovitch, asked the court to summon the attorney general over claims raised in the testimony of her predecessor, Avichai Mandelblit, and the judges said they had already considered such a step themselves. Chen proposed holding the meeting behind closed doors. The judges have not ruled on whether to summon her.