Therefore, the court was asked to acquit defendant 4 of the offenses attributed to him, if only because of doubt.
I am of the opinion that this argument of defendant 4 should not be accepted, and it seems clear that he was aware that the goods were obtained in an improper manner, when in the end, he was not required to pay the full price for them.
I have not found any basis for the claim that the goods were delivered to him by way of consignment, i.e., that the consideration should have been paid only after they were sold by him. The matter does not arise, at all, from the invoices and records appearing in the books of accounts, and as clarified above, the sale was made by the Sevilla company, and thus the matter was recorded in the invoice of this company, OPCI.
In summary, I am of the opinion that defendants 1 and 3 should be convicted of two offenses of forgery of a document with the intention of obtaining something through it under aggravated circumstances, under section 418 of the Penal Law, and of two offenses of using a forged document, under section 420 of the Penal Law.
In addition, they must be convicted of the offense of fraudulent receipt under aggravated circumstances, according to Section 415 of the Penal Law.
Defendant 4 will be convicted of the offense of receiving assets obtained in a crime, under Section 411 of the Penal Law.
In the circumstances of the case, I am not persuaded that another offense was committed by defendant 4, under the Income Tax Ordinance, and in any event I do not believe that he was given a reasonable opportunity to defend himself against this offense, as required by section 184 of the Income Tax Ordinance.
Before concluding my remarks regarding the group of charges 3-7, it is appropriate to address the question of the joint execution of these charges, to the extent that it should be seen as a kind of "business card" of the defendants involved.
The goods were ordered, as it were, for the importer of the Palestinian Authority, using the method of documentation to collect. The bank involved was the Arab Bank in Ramallah, and in all cases the bank's forged stamp was stamped on the bills of lading.