Lev Leviev. (photo credit: SCOTT WINTROW / GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA / AFP)
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Israeli billionaire Lev Leviev has presented police with a list of demands in exchange for his cooperation in an investigation over a massive diamond smuggling scheme involving his company, LLD, Channel 2 News reported Friday night.
Leviev currently resides in Russia and fears that police will immediately arrest him if he comes to Israel for questioning.
A document presented by his lawyers to police states that he will come to Israel on the condition that he is allowed to return home after his questioning and will return to Israel if needed.
“Leviev is prepared to report to you and to provide full and detailed answers to any questions,” the document reads. Considering that he is not a resident of Israel, the lawyers proposed two options: either Leviev be at the disposal of investigators from his place of residence; or, he will come to Israel and will remain under house arrest for the course of his interrogation as long as he is permitted to return to his work abroad when his interrogation is over. Leviev will deposit a guarantee to ensure future cooperation in the investigation and will return for any further questioning according to “reasonable notice”, the document adds.
On Tuesday night, 42-year-old Mazal Hadadi, a junior employee at LLD who was questioned under caution in connection with the investigation, jumped out of her office window in Ramat Gan’s Diamond Exchange District.
Her husband, Kobi Hadadi has attacked the police’s conduct in the investigation and also said there is “no chance” his wife committed suicide.
Hadadi has accused police of using aggressive interrogation tactics and telling his wife that she would be sent to jail. Hadadi was laid to rest on Wednesday.
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LLD has sked Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit to probe the circumstances of the suicide, saying that her death raises suspicions of “aggressive and disproportionate” interrogation tactics.
The Israel Police expressed regret over the suicide but slammed the company’s statement as “fundamentally inaccurate.”
“The Israel Police always acts with the requisite sensitivity, while meticulously maintaining the dignity and rights of suspects and interrogatees, and taking a variety of investigative actions aimed at bringing perpetrators to justice,” it said.
Earlier this month, police arrested six suspects, including Leviev’s son and brother, on suspicion of smuggling diamonds worth hundreds of millions of shekels to Israel.
They are suspected of money laundering, offenses under the Income Tax Ordinance, customs offenses, conspiring to commit a crime, false registration of corporate documents, fraud and other offenses.
The arrests came following an undercover operation by the Israel Police’s Lahav 433 National Crime Unit and the Tax Authority in collaboration with the State Attorney-General’s Office’s Taxation and Economic Department.
Police believe the suspects each played a part in planning and smuggling diamonds into Israel over the course of several years, without reporting them to the relevant authorities.
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