Analysis: Why didn’t the A-G appeal the Liberman verdict?
In the ongoing battle over the prosecution’s image and whether it goes beyond its boundaries, he might have drawn less attention to this defeat if he had kept his explanation limited to the belief that an appeal would not succeed.
By YONAH JEREMY BOBAttorney-General Yehuda Weinstein 370(photo credit: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun )
Why did Attorney-General Yehuda Weinstein decide not to appeal the November 6 acquittal of Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman on fraud charges in the Belarusan Ambassador Affair? From one perspective, the answer could be quite simple: the Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court handed Weinstein and the prosecution a stinging defeat, which left little room for a win on appeal.But there were two other points that stood out in the noticeably short and tersely worded decision to drop an appeal.Point one was that Weinstein said that not only new State Attorney Shai Nitzan supported the decision, but that Nitzan’s just-exited predecessor, Moshe Lador, opposed appealing.This flies in the face of all of the media predictions that the decision of whether to appeal would be yet another public dispute between Lador (considered more aggressive in prosecuting) and Weinstein (considered more cautious).It also appears to contradict Lador’s prior major stands: complete certainty not only in the Belarusan Ambassador Affair case, but also in indicting Liberman in the multimillion dollar money- laundering “big case” which Weinstein decided, in December 2012, to close.Lador’s position also does not appear to square with his highly controversial decision to appeal the overall acquittal of former prime minister Ehud Olmert.What changed for Lador? A simple answer could be that he was humbled more by losing the Liberman case (and by losing big) than by the Olmert case, where he did succeed in getting at least a minor conviction.Alternatively, knowing that he was leaving office, that Nitzan, reportedly, was going to join Weinstein in wanting to drop an appeal, he wanted to avoid being overruled again in a public manner.The other noteworthy point was Weinstein’s citation of the court’s characterization of Liberman’s actions as “unfit and unethical.”There is no requirement in explaining a decision not to appeal to the public to revisit the issue of Liberman’s ethics.Also, whereas taking a position on moral issues beyond the question of convictions is clearly part of a court’s role, many would question whether the prosecution should make such pronouncements beyond whether or not to file an indictment.Surely, some of the statement was made to save face by trying to paradoxically show that while dropping the appeal, Weinstein still stuck to his view of the case.But in the ongoing battle over the prosecution’s image and whether it goes beyond its boundaries, he might have drawn less attention to this defeat if he had kept his explanation limited to the belief that an appeal would not succeed.
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