Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu applied for a formal pardon amid a years-long corruption trial, just weeks after President Donald Trump said that he should be pardoned.
“Today my lawyers submitted a request for clemency to the president of the state,” Netanyahu said in a video message published on Sunday X.
“The continuation of the trial is tearing us apart from the inside, provoking bitter divisions, deepening divisions,” he said. “My personal interest was and remains to continue the process until the end until I am fully acquitted of all charges, but security and political realities, national interests require otherwise.”
Netanyahu charged with fraudbreach of trust and accepting a bribe on three separate occasions. Prosecutors allege he traded regulatory favors with media owners in Israel to seek positive press coverage.
He was also accused of accepting gifts, including cigars and champagne, in exchange for promoting the personal interests of Hollywood producer Arnon Milchan and Australian billionaire James Packer. Prosecutors say they were worth hundreds of thousands of shekels. Milchan previously admitted in court to giving Netanyahu “excessive” gifts, but neither he nor Packer have been charged and both deny wrongdoing.
If convicted, he faces up to 10 years in prison for the bribery charges and a maximum three-year sentence for each fraud and breach of trust charge.
Netanyahu, Israel's longest-serving prime minister and the first sitting Israeli leader to face criminal charges, has consistently denied the charges, calling them a “witch hunt.” A verdict in the ongoing five-year trial is not expected until 2026, with Netanyahu also having the opportunity to appeal to the Supreme Court.
According to Israel's Basic Law, the country's president has the right to pardon criminals or commute their sentences. Pardons before conviction are extremely rare, but not unusual in Israel. Netanyahu pleaded not guilty when seeking a pardon and continued to deny the charges when making the request.
A spokesman for Israeli President Isaac Herzog said Netanyahu's pardon request was “extraordinary” and had “significant consequences.”
The Duke belongs to a different political movement than Netanyahu, and relations between the two men have sometimes been strained.
In accordance with “guidelines and procedures,” Netanyahu's request “is currently being submitted to the Department of Justice's Pardons Department, which will gather input from all relevant authorities,” the statement said, without indicating when a decision might be made.
In his video message, Netanyahu also quoted Trump's recent appeal to overturn the trialsaying it would allow the two leaders to “more vigorously advance the vital interests shared by Israel and the United States during a period of time that is unlikely to return.”
Two weeks ago, Trump wrote a letter to Duke asking that Netanyahu be granted a full pardon.
At the time, Duke's office said that “anyone asking for clemency must submit a petition in the prescribed manner.”
Defense Minister Israel Katz and Homeland Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir immediately supported Sunday's proposed pardon, with Katz citing the “challenging security reality” in Israel.
Netanyahu previously quoted war in Gaza and security concerns, seeking delays in the trial.
Opposition leader Yair Lapid said there should be no pardon without “an admission of guilt, an expression of remorse and immediate withdrawal from political life.”
Benny Gantz, another of Netanyahu's political rivals, said the pardon request was “bogus” and urged the leader: “Instead of fanning the flames, put out the fire you have created in Israeli society.”
In an unrelated case, the International Criminal Court issued a warrant last year for the arrest of Netanyahu regarding alleged war crimes committed in the Gaza Strip.
Both Israel and the United States do not recognize the jurisdiction of the ICC. The warrant theoretically puts Netanyahu at risk of arrest if he sets foot in an ICC member state, although the body has no police force and relies on international cooperation.
Israel reacted furiously to the warrants, with Netanyahu's office calling the decision “anti-Semitic” and rejecting the accusations as “absurd and false.”
Yarden Segev contributed.
