To this, it should be added that when he was questioned about the ELA transaction, already in his first interrogation with the Authority, Shachar pointed to Menashe as the person who handled the transaction and who asked him to bring from Harel an additional, fictitious offer, at a price that would be higher than the price of V (P/557(1), paras. 211-212, paras. 191-195, after he did not mention his name, paras. 166). He also acted in other cases in which he claimed that it was a certain orderer who asked him to obtain an additional offer from another supplier (P/557(2), 947-950, where he claimed that Peleg from Mekorot asked him to arrange for an offer from Harel; P/557(6), paras. 176-184, P/557(2), paras. 418-423, Ben Attia of SCD asked him to obtain another price quote). Even without addressing the merits of the matter, which relate to matters that do not fall within the scope of the indictment, they are sufficient to show that where there was a defense argument that the ordering party was the one who asked him to make another offer, he raised it in his interrogations and even named the relevant procurement person. This, too, undermines Shahar's claims that he sought to protect the procurement personnel or that in the charges discussed in the indictment, one of the procurement personnel asked him to bring offers from competing suppliers.
- The conclusion that arises is that there is no evidentiary basis for the fact that in which of the charges under discussion, any of the civil appeals asked any of the defendants to coordinate or arrange for the receipt of an additional, coordinated, from another supplier, or that the civil appeal personnel knew about the coordination of the proposals (in these circumstances, there is no need to ask the question of who is the party whose knowledge can establish a defense for the defendants who coordinated defense proposals, see and compare: Criminal Appeal 7621/14 Gottesdiener v. State of Israel , at paragraphs 21-22 of the judgment of the Honorable Justice D. Barak-Erez (March 1, 2017)).
- In view of the aforesaid rule, the defense's arguments that the ELA transaction – which is not included in the indictment before me – testifies to the method by which civil appeal operated in computer procurement transactions. The ELA transaction revolved around a completely different case, including a retroactive request for proposals, initiated by the principal (Menashe), through the winning supplier, and with a retrospective (and fictitious) date of the additional proposals. This was not the case with the coordination arrangements in the indictment. The testimonies also showed that the conduct of the ELA transaction was an exceptional case at IAI, an exceptional and one-time case (Peretz, p. 1642, paras. 4-12, a case like that of Menashe, who tried to make it as if there was competition after the order was issued, "nothing like this ever happened"; p. 1643, s. 28, "What Menashe did is extreme"; Menashe, p. 1419, paras. 4-15, this is bad conduct, which he regrets, did not characterize him, and "really not" acted in this way before; p. 1473, paras. 23-24, "The Only Time"; This is even without addressing the words of Shachar in P/557(1), 241-243, who referred to the conduct of the ELA transaction as "one isolated case" in which he was asked by a civil appeal to request a proposal from Harel). The conduct of the ELA transaction – in which evidence of improper conduct on the part of the client who asked for proposals retroactively – was investigated, and those involved in it were prosecuted separately. It does not affect the coordination arrangements that are the subject of the indictment here.
- The defense argued that in all that was said in the ELA Menashe deal, there was nothing but a "rotten fish" and that in practice there were others, some of them more senior, involved in the improper conduct (e.g., paras. 519-520 of the Wee Summaries; Peretz, p. 1641, paras. 5-7).
The defense referred to Peretz's testimony that the deal involved Bornstein, the head of the Technologies Administration, who conducted the negotiations with Oshri, Saratani, the manager of the Maman factory "who gave it a goshpanka", Leshem, the procurement manager of Maman, "who turned a blind eye" and Ziv Opper (Peretz, p. 1641, s. 11 - p. 1642, s. 3; Peretz's testimony revealed that his complaint related to the engagement in the deal with Wei despite the existence of a framework agreement with Harel, there; p. 1643, paras. 16-22, where Peretz testified that he himself did not deal with VMware; Nothing in the parts of the testimony to which the defense referred indicates that any of the others knew about Menashe's request to receive retroactive offers that would be fictitious backwards).