Netanyahu testimony ends two hours early after PM says he doesn't feel well

Asked if he aided, helped or connected Milchan in his efforts to purchase stock in Channel 10 while he served as finance minister between 2003 and 2005, Netanyahu denied it wholly.

Netanyahu asked the court to allow his testimony to end earlier, at 2 p.m., due to back pain. Lead judge Rivka Friedman-Feldman replied that the testimony would continue, with short breaks as needed.

When Netanyahu was questioned by police in 2017 about Milchan approaching him about his needs, he told the interrogators that he did not remember such a conversation.

“People don’t talk to me about their own issues - if Arnon had, I would have remembered it,” Netanyahu said on Tuesday. 

“I didn’t even know he was a returning citizen - why would we have spoken about it at all?” he added. “This collapses the entire basis of the indictment against me.”

The prime minister is accused of having advocated for tax exemption extensions for returning citizens, from which Arnon Milchan was and would have benefited.

The prosecution alleges that Milchan asked Yesh Atid head Yair Lapid, who was finance minister at the time, to pass regulations that would extend the 10-year tax exemption that returning citizens get. 

Netanyahu said that Milchan never spoke to him about it, and that he never asked Lapid about it. “I never even knew that Milchan was a returning citizen,” he said. 

“His whole life was in America - he came to visit Israel twice a year; why would I think he was an Israeli resident?” said Netanyahu. 

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's 25th day of testimony began in Tel Aviv on Wednesday morning.

The public trial testimony of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was delayed on Wednesday morning.  

Netanyahu began testifying behind closed doors on Tuesday already, which continued into Wednesday morning.