In any event, even if Leshem tried to distance himself in his testimony from involvement in the conduct in connection with the ELA transaction, this does not affect the conclusions in our case. This is not in relation to the coordination that was proven in response to the license renewal committee, in which Leshem was not involved; and not in relation to the other charges in the indictment, which, as stated above, are completely different from the conduct that was discovered in connection with the ELA transaction.
The attempt to discard the ELA deal into conduct in connection with the other charges and to paint the latter in fictitious colors was not supported by the evidence.
- The defense raised additional claims regarding Leshem, including regarding his conduct during his years of work at IAI, that he did not respond in real time to the criticism raised by Peretz regarding problems and difficulties in the procurement procedures at IAI, that his testimony was not reliable, and that his own testimony also revealed a problematic picture of the procurement proceedings in a civil appeal, which testifies – this is the defense's argument – about the "method" of conducting competition for the sake of appearance only (for example, Sections 525-527, and 519 of the Wii Summaries).
The defense referred, inter alia, to what Leshem said in his testimony, some of which were in response to Peretz's criticism of IAI's procurement procedures. In this case, the defense referred to Leshem's words regarding cases in which difficulties or problems arose in "the implementation of the competition procedures as they are written" (p. 2120, paras. 1-24, where with reference to a situation in which a project has already progressed with a certain supplier, but emphasizing that even in such a situation, the engagement is not guaranteed to the particular supplier who invested and there is room for competition); Because when the project was already moving forward with a certain supplier, "the horses ran away from the stable a bit" (p. 2135, paras. 2-17), while at the same time explaining that even if this could create difficulty for the supplier, which is already in the picture, there is no impediment to competition, and other suppliers can provide a solution even if it is not as efficient, p. 2135, paras. 18-27; See similarly, p. 2151, para. 27, regarding the need to integrate procurement personnel in the engineering planning stage in order "not to confront us with a fait accompli", in relation to N/170); that there are situations of exclusivity in which then it is not possible to compete (p. 2139, paras. 7-17; see also p. 2139, paras. 28-30 regarding the situation of the approval of a single supplier, which was discussed in paragraph 372 above; that the manufacturer's prioritization of one of the suppliers "is a negative thing and nullifies competition" (p. 2145, paras. 1-3), even though he testified that it is the supplier's business to obtain from the manufacturer the optimal discount percentage, p. 2126, s. 30 - p. 2127, s. 2; See his further references to the matter of prioritization, p. 2191, paras. 7-18). From all of this, the defense sought to learn that for its own sake he testified that it was not possible to hold a competition, and that in general, the competition held by a civil appeal was only for appearances.