On the other hand, there is no doubt in my heart that the defendant was a full partner in the release of the goods that arrived in the first container, knowing that no consideration was paid for the goods. At all the stages in which the supplier sought to honor the letter of credit, and even offered various discounts in order to receive consideration – even if only partially – he was refused and there was no willingness on the part of the defendant to remove the reservations or make the letter of credit operational.
Indeed, the prosecution is based on circumstantial evidence, which indicates the involvement of defendant 1 in the removal of the goods that were dispatched by the first container, but in my opinion, this is a tapestry of evidence that leads, in its accumulation, to one logical conclusion, and that is the defendant's criminal involvement. I do not believe that the interpretation offered by the defense should be accepted, in a manner consistent with the defendant's innocence.
Defendant 1 did not deny in his testimony in court that he had acted to release the first container, when, according to his version, Buchris handed him the bill of lading when it was converted and told him that he had arranged the payment for the shipment outside the credit limit, and therefore everything seemed to him to be in order. I do not accept this version in any way, since it has no support by objective evidence and is not corroborated by the testimony of Haim Buchris. The prosecution claims, rightly, that this version of the defendant was not presented in Buchris's cross-examination and he was not asked to respond to it, and this is significant from an evidentiary point of view. Moreover, it can be easily learned from the supplier's repeated inquiries that he did not receive any consideration for the release of the first container, and he was surprised when he learned that this container had been released. The correspondence shows the helplessness shown by the supplier towards the buyers of the goods, who did not fulfill the obligations that appeared in the letter of credit and did not pay him for the goods, even after they were offered a substantial discount. It is also worth mentioning that Buchris was bankrupt with no means, and ordering the goods through the letter of credit, with the support of the financier Calderon, was the only option for him to receive the goods. His undertaking was to pay for them, and the rest of the expenses – only after the goods were sold to customers, and he certainly could not pay the supplier outside of the letter of credit. I see no reason to doubt Buchris's statement, according to which he approached defendant 1 and asked him to remove the reservations, so that the letter of credit could be honored, but all his requests on this subject were rejected by the defendant.