Former Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu is negotiating a deal: Reports | News

A possible deal could remove Netanyahu from the Israeli political scene for years, according to media reports.

Former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is negotiating a deal to end his corruption trial, news agencies have reported.

Netanyahu, who lost power in June after serving as prime minister for 12 years in a row and is now the leader of the opposition, has been charged with bribery, breach of trust and fraud in three cases in 2019. They are all being judged together. .

The deal could be signed earlier this week, a person involved in the talks told the Associated Press on Sunday. Any deal could take away from Netanyahu’s embarrassing and lengthy deal trial on an issue that has reached the nation.

A source told Reuters news agency that talks about a condition that would remove Netanyahu from politics.

The source said that Netanyahu, 72, was discussing an agreement with Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit, according to which he would plead guilty to the charge reduction and change the resulting prison sentence to community service.

But talks have been rife with Netanyahu’s request to waive a sentence with a “moral penalty” clause that would force him to leave politics under Israeli law for years, the source told Reuters on condition of anonymity. The State Attorney’s Office declined to comment.

Reports of an agreement angered critics who said the rule of law would be weakened.

“The man who worked to destroy the public’s confidence in the foundations of democracy for personal reasons has no right to agreements,” Health Minister Nitzan Horowitz said in a tweet.

Horowitz was talking about Netanyahu’s attempts after he was accused of questioning the Israeli justice system, saying he was partisan and carrying out a witch hunt against him.

Demonstrators rallied outside the house of the Attorney General on Saturday evening to protest the deal. Any agreement is likely to be challenged in court.

Netanyahu’s lawyer has denied all charges and prosecutors a political motivation witch-hunt, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Netanyahu is committed sitting down his successor, Naftali Bennett, is a nationalist who is based on a coalition of diverse parties.

Netanyahu’s conservative Likud party did not form a new government last year, in part because relatives refused to join Netanyahu, citing the ongoing trial.

With his legal issues behind him, Netanyahu may in theory be able to form a broad new right-wing coalition. If banned from politics, right-wing members of Bennett’s coalition would be able to form a new government with a Likud party under the new leadership.

Former Supreme Court President Aharon Barak promoted the idea of ​​the deal.

Kan told radio that he would ease the pressure on the justice system, and for years he had been defending Netanyahu’s allegations against loyalists because he was being denied justice.

A spokesman for Likud said he was not aware of any such negotiations.