Last update - 00:00 03/09/2007
Police recommend indicting ex-finance minister for fraud, theft
By Jonathan Lis and Yuval Azoulay, Haaretz Correspondents
There is enough evidence to charge former finance minister Abraham Hirchson (Kadima) with embezzling millions of shekels from the Leumit workers federation and Nili, an affiliated non-profit organization, police said Sunday.
He is also likely to be charged with aggravated fraud, breach of trust and money laundering, police said. Police suspect he embezzled the funds over the course of several years, both during his tenure as chairman of Leumit and after.
There is also enough evidence to charge other employees of Leumit and Nili with abetting Hirchson's crimes, police said, including former Leumit director general Yitzhak Russo and former Nili chair Ovadia Cohen, today the deputy mayor of Ramat Gan.
Among the key pieces of evidence were bank statements from Hirchson's private account, which showed deposits and withdrawals of tens and even hundreds of thousands of shekels at a time. Hirchson claimed that some of these deposits were gifts from a rich relative in Switzerland, but investigators found this unconvincing.
Moreover, Cohen testified against Hirchson afterconfessing his own role in the embezzlement.
In contrast, police said they found no evidence of wrongdoing in Hirchson's management of the March of the Living organization, which runs student trips to former Nazi concentration camps. About 10 years ago, he was detained at a Polish airport carrying a suitcase filled with $250,000 in cash, but police accepted his explanation that he was simply bringing funds not used during that year's trip back to Israel.
The prosecution still has to approve the police's recommendations, so the relevant material was transferred to the Tel Aviv District Attorney's Office and the State Prosecutor's Office Sunday. However, four senior prosecutors from the DA's office were actively involved in the later stages of the probe, while State Prosecutor Eran Shendar and Attorney General Menachem Mazuz were both briefed regularly. Police therefore believe their recommendations will be accepted. Sources in the prosecution seconded this assessment.
The final decision will be made by either Shendar or Mazuz. A preliminary decision will presumably be made within the next few weeks, as Shendar has publicly promised to decide whether to indict Hirchson before he (Shendar) resigns in another two or three months (depending on when a replacement is found). However, since Hirchson is a Knesset member and former minister, he will then be granted a hearing by Mazuz at which he can try to persuade the attorney general to change his mind. Only after that will a final decision be made.
Hirchson resigned as finance minister earlier this year due to the police investigation.