Unsurprisingly, the Israeli police recommendation that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu be indicted for taking bribes in the Bezeq-Walla corruption probe, known as Case 4000, has made international headlines.
The Independent, however, got its headline wrong:
Except Netanyahu is not “set to be charged” as the headline states. The police recommendation is just that – a recommendation.
As The Times of Israel points out:
The recommendations now go to the Attorney General’s Office, where they will first be reviewed by the state prosecutor before going to Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit.
Mandelblit, who will make the final decision whether to indict the prime minister, intends to examine all three cases at the same time, which will be possible only after he receives the state attorney’s recommendations based on the final police reports.
That process puts the likely date of any final word on whether a trial may be in Netanyahu’s future in late 2019, possibly after the next Knesset elections, which are currently slated for November 2019 but may very well be held earlier.
Any readers who think that Netanyahu is “set to be charged” are in for a potentially very long wait even assuming that the Attorney General acts on the recommendation.
We contacted The Independent to point out the misleading headline, which was then amended:
