The supplier's sales manager, Mr. Ali Sadiq, testified that he had received exhibit P/292 by fax from Araldo Friese. There is no dispute that this was a forged document that was not produced by Mizrahi Bank, and the bank's man, Haim Lerner, testified to this.
Ephraim Meir himself, who is registered as the owner of two telephone and fax numbers, lives in the settlement of Beit El, and he testified that he received two phone calls in fluent English and with a French accent. According to him, Defendant 1 was the one who approached him with a request to answer the telephone calls from abroad in connection with the import transactions.
In the diary of defendant 1 (P/263), the name of Ephraim Meir and the company "Ahavat Eitan Beit-El Ltd.", and the same fax number, which appeared on the forged document, is mentioned.
The prosecution does not fully accept the version of Ephraim Meir, who claimed that to the question of whether the bank was involved, he answered in the negative. According to the prosecution's approach, it is reasonable to assume that he cooperated with the defendants and confirmed to the spokespersons from abroad that it was a bank.
Another claim made by the prosecution was that defendant 3, Araldo Frizzi, had complicated himself regarding the delivery of the forged letter, which was pretended to be an authentic letter from Mizrahi Bank.
As to the claim regarding the forgery of bank receipt stamps, it was argued that since there were documents for the collection that must be prepared for the bank's ordinance, the Arab Bank stamps were forged, in order to imprint the stamps of the receipt on the collection documents.
The defendants presented the customs broker with a copy of an air transport document bearing an additional stamp of the Arab Bank, and in this way the goods could be released. Regarding the fact that this was a forged stamp of signage and the forgery of two signatures of authorized signatories of the Arab Bank, the bank's legal advisor, Naim Fadel, testified. The witness also presented examples of the signatures of the bank's authorized signatories, which are not identical to the signatures stamped on the bills of lading.