"Here it is worth emphasizing that the information regarding the connections and relations between Friedman and Anglo-African, as well as between Friedman and the Bahamian society, was in Friedman's special knowledge, and the possibilities that he was able to bring evidence of these relations were immeasurably greater than the possibility available to the prosecution. It is a well-known rule in the law of evidence that in such a state of affairs, a small amount of evidence brought by the prosecution is sufficient to transfer to the defendant the burden of proof, in the sense of the duty to bring evidence...".
See also the words of the scholar Dr. Yaniv Vaki, in his book "Laws of Evidence" (Volume 4, forthcoming in 2020) that clearly summarizes the accepted legal approach to the issue:
"It should be clarified that in criminal law, the prosecution bears the burden of persuasion that all the facts that constitute an offense under the substantive law have been met, whether it is a fact of a positive nature or a fact of a negative nature. In addition, there is no issue with the matter of the burden of persuasion whether it is a fact that is within the defendant's personal knowledge or not. However, these facts – that this is a fact of a negative nature or a fact that is in the defendant's knowledge – may have an impact on the burden of bringing evidence, in the sense that insofar as it is a negative fact or a fact that is in the defendant's knowledge, less evidence will be required to lift the burden of bringing evidence and transferring it to the defendant. This amount can even be quite tiny".
- This is the place to address the main arguments raised by the defense, which, in my opinion, did not raise the tactical burden and refute the conclusion regarding the intention to profit from a potential transaction between the State of Israel and Gazprom, through the ancillary transaction.
(a) It was claimed that in 2008 the defendant's business focused on the oil field and not on the gas sectorHowever, even if I accept this argument, it does not negate the defendant's intention to develop business channels in other areas of the energy sector;