All of the documents detailed above: the accompanying employment contract draft (two documents), the first meeting summary document and the second meeting summary document will be referred to, where I will refer to them as a single entity. The Documents.
The plaintiffs, Adv. Susanna Schorr and Adv. Hofit Shrim, argued in their summaries that the combination of the documents is sufficient to show that the defendant was one of the planners of the accompanying transaction, since otherwise there is no explanation for the presence of the documents in the folder bearing his name on the Manofim server.
The prosecution also referred to document N/8 submitted by the defense – an email dated June 24, 2008 from Maorit Jerbi to Danny Vaknin, who served as CEO of Manofim (hereinafter: Vaknin) and from him to the defendant, titled "The Translated Document" (the original mistake – B.S.) and attached to it a document ostensibly identical to the accompanying draft employment contract – P/20.
- The defense sought to reject the prosecution's claim regarding the existence of an economic interest and the promotion of an ancillary transaction, while arguing a large number of arguments, the main ones of which I will elaborate on: (a) In 2008, the defendant's business focused on oil and not gas; (b) the lack of an investigation by the investigative authorities regarding the relationship between the defendant and Vanist; (c) Testimony of Orit Jerbi, secretary of Manofim (hereinafter – Orit), whereby she used to keep documents in the same folder, on her own initiative, to the extent that she believed them were relevant, or in accordance with the instructions of one of her employers and the defendant's claim that he did not know of the existence of the folder at all; (d) the possibility that some party, apparently from the Russian side, who knew about the meeting with Gazprom, tried to identify a business opportunity and forwarded the draft crane contract on its own initiative; (e) the fact that the transaction between the State of Israel and Gazprom was unrealistic, and therefore there was no point in promoting any ancillary transaction; (f) The fact that Manofim is a party to the draft of the accompanying transaction shows that the defendant has no involvement in anything, in the absence of any logic to "enlist" a public company in which he is a partner, which lacks knowledge in the field, and to prefer this option to an attempt to promote the transaction through one of his private companies.
Decision
- After examining the relevant evidence and the arguments of the parties, I have reached the conclusion that the prosecution has succeeded in proving that the defendant was involved in the ancillary transaction, and therefore, it can be determined that he had an intention to profit from a potential transaction between the State of Israel and Gazprom, even if he believed that the chances of the move maturing were extremely low. In addition to the above, it is not possible to deny the defendant's version, which is also consistent with my impression of his remarks, that the assistance he gave Ben-Eliezer in organizing the two meetings (with Gazprom and Suker) also stemmed from his desire to assist the interests of the State of Israel, as described to him by Ben-Eliezer.
- The following are the reasons that underlie my conclusion:
The prosecution presented four documents indicating that the defendant and Manofim had an economic interest in the potential transaction between the State of Israel and Gazprom, and succeeded in linking these documents to the defendant, in such a way that it located these documents on the Manofim server in a folder bearing the defendant's name, in the following track: Financial Levers >Bosses > Avraham Nanikashvili >Bazan.