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Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit has reportedly decided to indict Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on charges of bribery, fraud and breach of trust.

According to Israel’s Channel 12 News, Mandelblit will charge Netanyahu in connection to Case 4,000, in which Netanyahu allegedly received positive news coverage from website Walla!, which is owned by telecommunications giant Bezek, in exchange for preferential regulatory measures that benefited the telecom’s company and its owner.

The report featured extensive quotes attributed to “confidants” of Mandelblit, understood to be his way of communicating his messages directly. Mandelblit has told them: “The talking points against me are coming straight from the top. The Prime Minister is dragging the entire country down with him. It’s sad and it’s going to hurt us all.”

Netanyahu’s legal team will meet with Mandelblit on Monday afternoon and are expected to ask him to postpone his decision on the Prime Minister’s corruption cases until after the 9 April election. The meeting was requested by lawyer Navot Tel-Zur, after he first wrote a letter to Mandelblit in which he complained about the way Netanyahu’s cases were being handled in the run-up to elections.

The assessment is that Mandelblit will not postpone his decision and will announce his decision before the evening of 21 February when the parties’ electoral lists are handed in.

Navot Tel-Zur said in a statement: “On the eve of the meeting between the Prime Minister’s lawyers and the attorney general there is no place for leaks whose goal is to sabotage the meeting and to undermine the Prime Minister’s right to be heard in a fair and professional manner. It is preposterous that neither money nor envelopes, but rather a handful of non-hostile articles, in an ocean of hostile articles against the prime minister, on a website is considered to be bribery … this is an absurd situation and undermines the foundations of democracy.”

Speaking on Army Radio, coalition whip David Amsalem said: “Is that how an Attorney General speaks, before he makes a decision? Who even gave him permission to be interviewed?” He called Mandelblit: “Insolent and arrogant, had he had the courage, he would have at least voiced the remarks himself”.