Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit initially offered former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu a far more lenient plea deal in his corruption trial than the one currently being discussed, but backed away due to a flood of pressure from key figures in the prosecution, Channel 12 reported Friday.

According to the report, Netanyahu, 72, the current opposition leader, would only have had to commit to stepping away from public life for two years, with the charges also being significantly lowered in two of the cases against him and dismissed in the third.

Since reports of the negotiations emerged last week, they have generally said that Mandelblit has been demanding that any plea deal with Netanyahu include a clause of “moral turpitude” — which would bar the former prime minister from public office for seven years.

This requirement was underlined on Thursday by Deputy State Attorney Shlomo Lamberger, who made the first public remarks by a senior justice official on the offer, telling a conference held by the Israel Bar Association that it would be “inconceivable” for a plea deal not to include the clause.

“Anyone who understands moral turpitude understands that with such acts it is inconceivable there isn’t moral turpitude,” Lamberger said.