In April 2011, Attorney-General Yehuda Weinstein informed Foreign Minister
Avigdor Liberman that he was ready to present an indictment against him in the
“main” case that went back more than a decade, but that he would give him a
hearing to convince him otherwise.
Liberman maintained his innocence
throughout.
The compelling facts against Liberman appeared to be that
there was no good explanation how his driver and 21- year-old daughter, among
others, had run what had been his companies before he returned to public
service, and over which he had formally renounced control.
There also
appeared to be no good explanation how million of dollars in funds were funneled
into these companies from foreigners without Liberman’s connections and
involvement.
Next, many witnesses taking Liberman’s side had what
appeared to be contradictory and nonsensical stories.
Then came the
decision against the state in the Jerusalem corruption trial against former
prime minister Ehud Olmert.
Also, about a month ago, the central witness
in the “main” case who lives in Cyprus, the only living and locatable witness
willing to say Liberman kept a connection to the companies, changed her
story.
Despite these circumstances, State Attorney Moshe Lador, head of
the financial crimes unit Avia Aleph and others still wished to indict
Liberman.
Ultimately, Weinstein sided with Deputy State Attorney Shuki
Lemberger and the five staff attorneys who handled the nuts and bolts of the
case who pushed for closing it.
Weinstein did give the standard
explanation for the three years it took to decide about an indictment, on top of
three years of police investigations and five years of an earlier investigation,
namely that the evidence was spread in eight countries and hard to
gather.
But at the end of the day, he also apologized for the delay and
admitted that many would find the length of the delay unacceptable no matter the
explanations.