- Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu withdrew his request for immunity in corruption charges on Tuesday morning.
- Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit filed the criminal charges hours later in Jerusalem’s District Court.
- Mandelblit announced his indictment in November, but couldn’t file the charges until the request for immunity had come to an end.
- Netanyahu is in Washington DC for the expected unveiling of President Donald Trump’s plan to address the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu withdrew his request Tuesday for immunity from prosecution on corruption charges, according to The Washington Post.
Only hours later, Israel’s attorney general Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit filed criminal indictments in Jerusalem’s District Court.
Netanyahu, who is in Washington D.C. for the planned unveiling of President Donald Trump’s Israeli-Palestinian peace proposal, condemned on Facebook his opponents move to take up the key vote on his immunity plea while he was on a “historic mission to design the permanent borders of Israel and ensure our safety for future generations.”
“I won’t let political manoeuvres interfere with this historic moment that I am leading,” according to a translation in the Washington Post.
In the last month, Netanyahu asked the Knesset, the national legislature, to grant him immunity from prosecution on multiple counts of bribery, fraud and breach of trust. Netanyahu then gave a fiery national address condemning the investigation against him as a “witch hunt,” according to the Post.
Read the article by Haven Orecchio-Egresitz in Business Insider Australia.