Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu struck a defiant tone in court on Tuesday, his first day testifying in his own corruption trial.

The 75-year-old prime minister has been accused in three separate cases of bribery, fraud, and breach of trust in public office. The trial has dragged on for several years, and his testimony marks the first time in Israel’s history that a sitting prime minister has testified in a criminal case. He vehemently denies any wrongdoing.

In response to the allegations that he accepted tens of thousands of dollars worth of cigars and champagne, the prime minister told the court he “never gets to consistently smoke [his] cigars,” according to the Jerusalem Post, adding, “I am always interrupted. By the way, I hate champagne.”

Netanyahu is Israel’s longest-serving prime minister, and his governing coalition is now dependent on key members of the country’s far-right settler movement. He is the first sitting Israeli prime minister to be charged with a crime, and he described the charges against him as an “ocean of absurdity” in the courtroom.

Prior to taking the stand, Netanyahu’s lawyer, Amit Hadad, claimed prosecutors “weren’t investigating a crime, they were going after a person.”

Netanyahu was indicted in 2019 in three cases in which he was accused of accepting gifts from millionaire friends in exchange for personal favors and for allegedly seeking regulatory decisions for media tycoons in return for favorable coverage.

In one of the cases, Case 1000, he’s accused of accepting tens of thousands of dollars worth of expensive gifts from Arnon Milchan, an Israeli Hollywood film producer, and Australian billionaire James Packer in exchange for helping Milchan secure a visa to the United States and of advancing a tax exemption law that could have benefited Israelis living abroad.

Milchan testified in June 2023 that he bought Netanyahu expensive gifts, including cigars and champagne, and inquired about the status of his visa, according to the Jerusalem Post.

“I have been waiting for eight years for this moment to tell the truth,” Netanyahu told the three-judge court, according to Middle East Eye. “But I am also a prime minister … I am leading the country through a seven-front war. And I think the two can be done in parallel.”

“I work 17, 18 hours a day,” Netanyahu said in the courtroom, per the Times. “Everyone who knows me knows this. That’s how I work. I eat my meals at my work table. It’s not cordon bleu. It’s not waiters coming with white gloves.”

In the other two cases, he allegedly made deals with the owners of media outlets, offering benefits in exchange for favorable coverage of him.

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Netanyahu’s lawyers had previously sought to delay the case’s proceedings, citing Israel’s war in Gaza following Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attack. Over the years, Netanyahu has sought to portray himself as the victim of a witch hunt.

“The real threat to democracy in Israel is not posed by the public’s elected representatives, but by some among the law enforcement authorities who refuse to accept the voters’ choice and are trying to carry out a coup with rabid political investigations that are unacceptable in any democracy,” he said in a statement on Thursday.