"We have reasonable grounds for assuming that Arcadi Gaydamak will be in Israel on March 3," his lawyers, David Narodetsky and Lea Sigler-Hanan, told the Tel Aviv Magistrates Court yesterday in the private criminal complaint filed against him by Uri Shani. Sources inform ''Globes'' that Gaydamak has instructed that his plane, car, and guards be ready for this date.
Gaydamak will apparently return to Israel from Russia on March 3 because a French court is due to give its verdict in the "Angolagate" arms smuggling case against him and others the next day. The French prosecutors are asking for six years in prison and a €5 million fine against Gaydamak.
Although Gaydamak carries a diplomatic passport in his capacity as economic advisor to the Angola Embassy in Moscow, if he is convicted by the French court, the Russians may not grant him sanctuary and might extradite him to France, if they ask for him. Gaydamak's associates therefore believe that he will prefer to be in Israel when the verdict is announced.
Gaydamak was due in court in Tel Aviv yesterday for Shani's statement of claim against him, because this is a criminal case. Narodetsky said that his communications with Gaydamak are irregular, and that he had been notified that Gaydamak wants to replace him with Adv. Israel Shalev.
Angolagate, also known as the Mitterrand-Pasqua affair (named for then President Francois Mitterrand and Interior Minister Charles Pasqua), is an international political scandal over the secret sale and shipment of arms from Eastern Europe to the government of Angola by the French government in the 1990s. The trial has lasted for four months.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on February 24, 2009
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