Minister of Labor, Welfare, and Social Services Haim Katz was questioned under caution today as a suspect in the corruption affair at Israel Aerospace Industries Ltd. (IAI) (TASE: ARSP.B1). Katz came to the offices of the Israel Police Lahav 433 national fraud squad, and was interrogated for hours, after Attorney General Avichai Mandelblitt approved the interrogation.
The main suspicion against Katz is being involved in rigging tenders for IAI suppliers and bribing people to register in the Likud party. The affair, called Affair 630, involves a large number of people at many different levels of IAI, including senior executives, workers committee members, directors, managers, junior executives, doormen, consultants, and suppliers.
Other than Katz, one of the main suspects in the affair is Brigadier General (reserves) Amal Assad. Those involved are suspected of receiving bribes and favors from private companies providing services to IAI (the company's suppliers) and promoting those companies' interests, among other things by helping the suppliers win IAI tenders. The suppliers themselves are suspected of giving bribes and favors and other offenses. Assad is suspected of promoting the interests of Isfiya-based company Druzenet, with which he was affiliated. He is denying the accusations.
Other suspicions being investigated concern the extortion of IAI workers to vote for candidates in the elections for the IAI workers' committee, to register for the Likud party, and to vote in the Likud primaries in order to ensure Katz's place on the Likud Knesset list.
It is suspected that workers' committee members threatened workers that if they did not register Likud and vote in the primaries, or did not vote for the committee's candidates in the elections, their promotion and terms of employment would be affected. One of the suspects on the workers' committee is Eli Cohen, a worker in the accessories plant, a very dominant committee member, and an associate of Katz.
Another suspect is Yair Katz, Haim Katz's son, who chaired the IAI workers' committee. Yair Katz is suspected of extortion and mediating a bribe.
On June 1, the Lod District Court heard preliminary testimony from Ayala Basil, wife of IAI worker Giora Basil, who claimed that her husband had been threatened by Eli Cohen. It is suspected that Giora Basil was threatened that his promotion at work would be affected if he did not vote in the elections for the IAI workers' committee. Ayala Basil's testimony concerned an event in which Cohen allegedly threated her husband at a time when she was undergoing chemotherapy. Her testimony is being heard now because of her medical condition.
The witness alleged that the committee members had insisted that her husband vote in the elections, although he had accompanied her to her chemotherapy treatments. Her husband pleaded, and explained to the committee members that he had to stay with her, because she could not be alone during or after her treatments, but they nevertheless exerted heavy pressure on him to vote, until the chemotherapy treatment was interrupted in the middle, and they went to vote.
Published by Globes [online], Israel Business News - www.globes-online.com - on June 29, 2017
© Copyright of Globes Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd. 2017