Defendant 1 further claims that the prosecution did not bring Mario Weissman to testify, even though he was listed as a prosecution witness in the indictment. According to the defendant, the prosecution did not provide a real explanation for the reason for Weissman's non-summons, and made do with mere claims that it had not been able to locate the witness.
The witness Stegowski, who testified on behalf of the prosecution, denied any connection to defendant 1 and claimed that he did not know him and had never met him, and that he did not provide anything attesting to the defendant's control of the Merig company.
Similar testimony was also heard from Meir Ben Shimon, one of the owners of Forum Office, and in fact Araldo Parisi did not claim that Defendant 1 had control of the Merig company.
The defendant further claims that in one isolated case he used a Merig invoice, with the approval of Mario Weissman, who was the owner and manager of Merig. This was for the purpose of receiving payment for a marketing fee that was due to the wife of defendant 1, Michal Resh, of the company Habitat Ltd., in the sum of NIS 992. With Weissman's approval, the invoice was issued and marked, P/257. It was further claimed in the summaries of defendant 1 that from the variety of evidence, documents and testimonies, it appears that the main operator of the Marig company during the relevant period was Shlomo Sweet. This man was a business partner of Mario Weissman for many years and in many companies, and should be seen as a partner and controlling shareholder of Merig. Just because he was bankrupt, Shlomo Metuk was not registered as a formal owner or manager of a marig company. This was confirmed by Shlomo Matuk's testimony in court, and he ruled out the possibility that defendant 1 was a controlling shareholder or holder of any position in the Marig company. In this regard, the defense seeks to give preference to Shlomo Metuk's words in court, over what he said in his interrogation, where he claimed that defendant 1 became the owner of Marig, after Weissman left the company. At the same time, Shlomo Matuk wanted to help his friend and partner Mario Weissman, and to show that he was no longer running the Merig company.