Against the background of the above, and the failure of Investigator Biton to document the entirety of his actions (as proved in the chapter dealing with the interrogation of the accused), the defendant's claim that Stoller's name was mentioned at a date prior to his testimony in court cannot be ruled out, and there is no reason to do so.
In any event, and even if I assume that Stoller's name first came up during the trial, I did not see fit to determine that the weight of the complete version is low only in view of the fact that the supplementary part of it (related to the receipt of the funds from Stoller) was mentioned at the time of the testimony. This conclusion is consistent, inter alia, with the absence of any motive on the part of the defendant to deny the transfer of NIS 260,000 to Ben-Eliezer, after he admitted on his own initiative the transfer of a more significant sum.
- In his testimony, the defendant referred to the reason why the money was transferred to the receiver's account in two installments (NIS 250,000 and NIS 10,000) and noted that it was apparently a mistake by him or his secretary, in transferring only NIS 250,000, a mistake that was corrected immediately nearby, in the manner of transferring an additional NIS 10,000. I did not find the above to impair the authenticity of the defendant's version, especially since the prosecution did not present any argument for which, insofar as it was a criminal act, it was necessary to split the transfer of the funds to Ben-Eliezer, in the manner described above.
Stoller's testimony in connection with the first transfer
- In his testimony, Asher Stoller described the relationship that was forged between him and the defendant, a relationship that also led to a business partnership between the defendant and Stoller's father. After his father's death, Stoller stepped into his shoes and became his business partner. Stoller described in his testimony that in 2011 the defendant came to him and told him that his partner wanted to give a loan-aid to Fouad Ben-Eliezer. Since he had money in Israel, the defendant asked Stoller and the latter transferred to him the required sum of NIS 250,000-260,000 by bank transfer.
This is what he testified: