The state announced on Monday indictments in Case 3000 against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s former chief of staff, his then-nominee to lead the National Security Council and several other senior officials, while surprisingly dismissing cases against close confidant and cousin David Shimron and former navy chief Eliezer Marom.
Known as the “Submarine Affair,” the state said in December 2019 that it would likely indict all of the above listed officials, but since then, the suspects appeared at pre-indictment hearings held by the state attorney’s office and Shimron and Marom managed to convince the prosecution to drop the charges against them.
The officials, who were indicted by the Tel Aviv Economic Crimes Division in Tel Aviv District Court, include Netanyahu’s former chief of staff David Sharan; former deputy NSC chief and nominee for NSC chief Avriel Bar Yosef; two former top aides to minister Yuval Steinitz: Rami Taib and Yitzhak Liber; former minister Eliezer Zandberg; Rear-Adm. (res.) Shai Brosh; and middle man Miki Ganor, who was the representative of ThyssenKrupp AG, the German conglomerate that has been building Israel’s submarines.
Four companies associated with Ganor have also been charged.
At one point, Attorney-General Avichai Mandelblit was also involved, since there were parts in the case which could have led to charges against Netanyahu himself. Mandelblit had Netanyahu questioned as a fact witness, but he was never declared a suspect.
Monday’s indictment was approved by Tel Aviv District prosecutor Yonatan Tadmor, who was also involved in the Holyland trial against former prime minister Ehud Olmert.
IN NOVEMBER 2018, the police recommended that several of Netanyahu’s top aides be indicted for conspiring to skim off the top from the large deals with ThyssenKrupp.
Shimron had been accused of money-laundering. Sharan stands accused of bribery, money-laundering, breach of trust and violation of campaign financing laws.
Marom was accused of bribery, money-laundering and tax crimes.
Steinitz, who served as finance minister and then as energy minister, had two aides, Taib and Liber, who are both accused of serving as middle men in the bribery scheme, money-laundering and aiding in tax fraud.
Steinitz was never a suspect, though the prosecution statement says that Bar Yosef acted to persuade ThyssenKrupp official Walter Freitag of his and Ganor’s usefulness by setting up a meeting for Freitag with Steinitz.
Zandberg is accused of bribery, money-laundering, breach of trust and tax crimes while he was running the Keren Hayesod fund. He was allegedly paid NIS 103,000 to advance the scheme between 2012 and 2016.
Ganor at one point was a state’s witness and helped break the case open but later reneged on his agreement to testify for the prosecution. He is accused of bribery, money-laundering, tax crimes and violating campaign finance laws.
He received NIS 10,402,971 from Thyssenkrupp for advancing the submarine deals with Israel. However, according to the indictment, a significant part of his work involved paying bribes to Israeli security officials.
Notably absent from the announcement was Netanyahu confidante Yitzhak Molcho, who faced a criminal investigation but was never charged.
THE STATE alleges that Bar Yosef was at the center of the bribery scheme with Ganor.
Before 2011, Israel had already bought five submarines from ThyssenKrupp but in that year, it initiated the procurement of a sixth one, and in 2015, the state began to pursue the purchase of three more submarines. This took place when Ganor was acting as the company’s representative.
Regarding Marom, a 2019 prosecution statement said he had received NIS 557,000 in bribes from Ganor between 2014 and 2016. Ganor allegedly paid Marom for advancing the scheme in his role as commander of the navy, while trying to cover up the payments by only paying Marom after he retired and by funneling payments through straw companies controlled by the two men.
They also forged documents to make it look like Marom had provided legitimate consulting services.
The prosecution did not explain publicly why it closed the case against Marom. Nevertheless, and despite the testimony by Ganor, the prosecution closed the case against Marom and dismissed all the charges.
STARTING IN 2014, Ganor allegedly paid Bar Yosef NIS 420,000 for the latter’s help to get himself appointed as the ThyssenKrupp representative in 2009, as well as facilitating Ganor’s deals at the Prime Minister’s Office and the Knesset.
The NIS 420,000 came after Ganor refused Bar Yosef’s initial demand to be paid one million euros.
To cover up the illegalities, the two forged documents alleging that Bar Yosef had provided legitimate consulting services. In addition, Bar Yosef and Ganor often used Brosh as an intermediary.
From 2013-2016, Ganor also sent three payments totaling NIS 130,000 to Sharan for promoting Ganor and the scheme’s interests, both as chief-of-staff for Steinitz and later as chief-of-staff for Netanyahu.
The NIS 130,000 was sent to Sharan through Liber and Taib.
In a 2019 statement, it was alleged that Ganor brought Shimron into the case to sign various bank documents that he wanted to avoid signing personally because of legal issues.
Without Shimron, Ganor could not have promoted a $100 million investment of the Germany-Israel Fund in a Swiss bank. He needed to disguise his involvement in the deal, which implied a conflict of interests between him and the chairman of the fund, Atalia Rosenbaum.
It had been alleged that Shimron signed the bank documents and was due to transfer 80% of two payments – one of $40,000 and the other of $100,000 – that he received from the bank to Ganor.
Shimron allegedly did transfer most of the $40,000 to Ganor, after taking a 20% commission, but he was unable to transfer most of the $100,000 due to suspicions by some of the banks involved.
Initially, Shimron and Ganor were accused of presenting false documents to the involved banks to facilitate transfer of the funds.
However, the Post has learned that during the pre-indictment hearings, Shimron’s lawyers succeeded in raising significant doubts as to whether he had actually criminally misled the bank.
Ganor served as a state’s witness for an extended period, but reneged on his cooperation after he realized that even as such a witness, most of his funds overseas had been frozen and were not being protected by the Israeli police.
The prosecutors on the case are Elad Pinchas, Tal Tavor, Dona Nakar-Muntzik and Itai Shaham.