Main Inquiry
- Vaknin, the deputy commander of Neve Tirza Prison until 2020, testified that the prison administration invited Rafi Tirsim, who made a proposal in the presence of the witness, Neve Tirza commander Sara Friedman, and a police officer (Eli Yifrach). During the meeting, the defendant also arrived, who intervened in the conversation and became angry. At one point, he apologized for his behavior, but brought in another contractor who made a double offer (p. 391).
- As to the defendant's claim that the prison headquarters preferred that the filtration cell be built of wood rather than aluminum in order for it to fit in, and that the defendant explained that wooden construction was more expensive, the witness replied that she did not know what the commander said, but that she believed that she agreed to the suggestion of the shutter suffocants (pp. 392-393).
Cross-examination
- The security requirements regarding the opening of the doors by means of a drone, automatic locking and cameras existed from the outset (p. 413). Ultimately, the defendant's proposal was approved and not the cheaper offer of blinds (p. 413). The defendant brought a contractor who performs wood work, but there was no such demand from the prison administration (p. 413).
Claims Exhibits
- P/20 - Tax invoice No. 1369 dated 5.5.2016 in C.A. 37, NIS 000.08 including VAT issued to the IPS for "construction of a roof and closure above the Neve Tirza entrance", signed by Cutta.
P/21 - Ordering an IPS framework dated April 19, 2016 for the construction of a roof at the entrance to Neve Tirza, which was issued for the aforementioned amount.
The Haganah Affair
The Defendant's Testimony
Main Investigation (Transcript of January 4, 2023)
- As a background to the indictment, there are cases in which there is no reference in the tenders to specific works, and in these cases, and in the case of bids of up to NIS 60,000, the initiator of the order is entitled to contact contractors who do not belong to the IPS (p. 521).
- This was a project to build a filtration cell at the entrance to Neve Tirza. The district commander gave the defendant a program and the defendant prepared a bill of quantities based on an insulated panel design. At the same time, the prison approached the aluminum contractor Lace Shutters for a bid, but it turned out that the prison was not interested in an aluminum filtration cell, but rather a filtration cell made of wood. The defendant objected to the cell being made of wood because it would require a lot of maintenance (pp. 521-522). At the same time, the prison approached Hatuka, who had prepared a training structure in the past. Hatuka called the defendant and told him that Farah had asked him for a price quote. A joint tour was conducted, in which a security officer also took part and raised his demands – an electric door, an intercom and a camera.
Hatuka told the defendant that he could give a price quote for the wooden construction, but that he could not give a price quote for a low-voltage system. At the same time, the defendant called the district liaison officer and asked him if he had any balances on the orders and if he could give him a price estimate. The liaison officer came to the field and estimated the work at a maximum of NIS 5,000. The defendant asked him how this could be done, and the officer explained to him to contact Hatuka and ask for a 5% discount from the offer of NIS 37,000. After the discount, Hatuka reached the sum of NIS 32,000. The defendant told Hatuka to give an offer of NIS 37,000 anyway, and that Hatuka would have to pay NIS 5,000 to the subcontractor for the low-voltage works (p. 522). According to the defendant, the correspondence in which he asked for an invoice for NIS 5,000 (P/22 above) is in this matter.
- During the project, the district liaison officer contacted the defendant and told him that he had a balance left over from a certain project. Later, on the basis of this balance, the work was carried out in Neve Tirza. As a result, Hatuka was left with NIS 5,000 in his hand and approached the defendant with the question of what to do with the amount. At the same time, a pergola continuation project arrived in the Central District, and the defendant was approached by the Commission to carry out the project (a pergola with the Commissioner of Service Works). The defendant approached Hatuka for a price quote for the project, and Hatuka's offer was the cheapest, because he had deducted NIS 5,000 from the bid (p. 523). The project was postponed by a few months, and Hatuka eventually carried it out, but the defendant was no longer there (pp. 523-524).
- The defendant denied that he had asked Cuta to inflate his bid and that he had received a sum of NIS 5,000 from Cutta. Cuta is not a main contractor or a subcontractor, but rather an occasional contractor, and he does not depend on the defendant for the purpose of receiving works, and the defendant cannot prevent him from doing work (pp. 524-525). The defendant confirmed that he made sure to approve Cutta's price quote, but denied that this was done in exchange for a gift (p. 525). The defendant added that as an outstanding officer, "it is not Arkady's level to deal with Cuta for five thousand shekels" (p. 526).
Cross-examination (transcript of March 22, 2023)
- The defendant testified that he knew Hatuka when the latter had performed work about 6-8 years earlier and was impressed by his professionalism (pp. 497-498). Yifrach was the one who approached Hatuka to perform the filtration chamber in Neve Tirza. The defendant denied Hatuka's statements, according to which the defendant was the one who contacted him (p. 498). The defendant rejected the argument that the statements of the defendant's defense attorney during the interrogation of Yehudit Vaknin also indicate that Hatuka's offer was on behalf of the defendant (the defense attorney asked whether the defendant's offer, which was the most expensive, was not approved in the end, and Vaknin replied in the affirmative) (p. 498).
- Yifrach's statement that he was the one who ordered "Rafi Shutters" (the cheaper offer) is false. The defendant was the one who approached Rafi, who came to the tour and gave a price quote, since the defendant wanted to carry out the work from aluminum and not wood. This is despite the fact that Rafi Shutters' offer is addressed to Eli Yifrach (p. 499). The prison administration invited Hatuka, who had previously performed a wooden training room for her. The defendant objected to the work being done in wood, because it does not appear in the bill of quantities and requires a price quote and special approvals, and therefore he turned to Rafi (p. 500).
- The defendant was referred in response to the indictment, in which he claimed that he did not ask Cuta to inflate the price quote, and to the fact that in his testimony in the main interrogation he said that even after the discount he had given, he asked Cuta to make an offer of NIS 37,000 in order to pay a subcontractor for high-voltage work. To the question of whether he did not tell Cuta to inflate the price quote, the defendant replied that it was not his style of speech (the word "to blow") (p. 501), and later noted that he asked to "take it into account", but after stubborn cross-examination the defendant said that he did not remember, and in the end, the defendant replied: "I said" (pp. 502-503).
- The district liaison officer whom he mentioned in his testimony in the main interrogation was Doron Yaakov. When asked why he did not tell about him in his interrogations with the police, he replied that he had told about low-voltage work and had given Yaakov's phone number to the police (p. 504).
The defendant explained that there is a difference between the field of electrical work, for which the defendant is responsible, and the field of low-voltage work, which belongs to the media, for which Yaakov is responsible (p. 504). To the claim that in the police interrogation on November 7, 2018, when he was asked about this issue, he did not talk at all about electrical or low-voltage work, but rather about a balance for aluminum work, the defendant replied that he did not remember it (p. 505). When the prosecutor continued to insist on this matter, the defendant replied that apparently he had not been asked by the police (p. 506). The plaintiff insisted that the defendant had told the police that he wanted NIS 5,000 to remain for aluminum work because it was cut and worked with wood. The defendant denied this and offered an explanation according to which Hatuka also installed aluminum windows and that this was a confusion on the part of the investigators and not his (p. 506).
- When asked what happened after Hatuka received payment for the work (including the inflating), the defendant replied that Yaakov explained to him that the cost exceeded NIS 5,000 and that he had found a budget and opened the order for his contractor, regardless of the cut (p. 505). When asked what he did in the end with the additional NIS 5,000, he replied that he had done nothing with them (p. 506). However, he immediately later stated that at the same time there was work to enlarge the pergola, and therefore he told Hatuka to make an offer as low as NIS 5,000, in order to take advantage of the NIS 5,000 he received, and so it was (p. 506). The defendant denied Hatuka's statement that the defendant asked for and received the sum from him (pp. 507-508).
- The defendant was referred to the fact that his previous defense attorney did not confront Hatuka in his cross-examination with the defendant's version of the reason why Hatuka was required to increase the price quote, and replied that he did not know what was said in that interrogation. About the fact that in the police confrontation with Hatuka on November 7, 2018,
He did not accuse Hatuka of being a liar, but responded: "I don't remember, I don't believe it happened" (in response to the claim that Hatuka had transferred him NIS 5,000), the defendant noted that he was not "accurate" during the interrogation, due to the circumstances of his arrest at 5 a.m. and that he was in "post-trauma" (p. 508).
- The defendant rejected the argument that the correspondence P/22 between him and Cutta, in which he asked him if he could receive an invoice for the sum of NIS 5,000, was in fact a request to receive a fictitious invoice for the payment of a bribe (pp. 510-511).
- After he claimed in the main interrogation that he had recordings of him and Hatuka discussing the matter, the defendant confirmed in his cross-examination that he had not brought such recordings with him and that he did not record people (p. 511). The prosecutor clarified that the police also did not have such recordings (p. 511).
- The defendant rejected Yehudit Vaknin's statements regarding his involvement in the project, and claimed that his intervention was only in the framework of his role as a construction officer. The defendant also denied that he was angry with Yifrach (pp. 512-513).
Charge 5 - The accuser's summaries
- Hatuka's testimony is sufficient to convict the defendant on this charge, but beyond that, there is supporting and helpful evidence that supports Hatuka's version, such as the statements and testimonies of Vaknin and Yifrach.
- Hatuka, who confessed and was convicted of bribing the defendant at his request, testified that the defendant invited him to do the work and instructed him to inflate the price by NIS 5,000 and transfer this sum to him. As supporting evidence for Hatuka's version, the prosecution referred to Exhibit A/22 – the correspondence between the defendant and Hatuka in respect of the same NIS 5,000.
- The defendant claimed that Lt. Col. Eli Yifrach was the one who approached Hatuka to carry out the work, but his words contradict the testimonies of Hatuka, Yifrach and Yehudit Vaknin. The defendant's defense attorney also noted during Vaknin's interrogation that the defendant's proposal was the one that was ultimately approved.
- The defendant contradicted himself, when in response to the indictment, he denied that he had asked Khota to "inflate" the price quote, while in his testimony in the main interrogation he claimed that he had instructed Khota to increase the bid.
In his main interrogation, the defendant claimed for the first time that his request from Cuta to increase the price quote came in response to the request of the district liaison officer to add low-voltage work, when in his interrogation with the police he claimed that an additional NIS 5,000 was required to cover aluminum expenses, and when in response to the contradictions between his various versions, the defendant replied that in the end the liaison officer did not need the money at all. The defendant did not answer what Cuta did with the balance and was not even able to explain the correspondence with Cuta (Exhibit 22).