The state announced on Thursday that it will likely indict for bribery two more top defense officials, in addition to a group already noted in December, in Case 3000, the Submarine Affair. One of the officials is Brig.-Gen. (ret.) Avriel Bar-Yosef, who served as deputy chief of the national security council and was due to be promoted to chief until he came under investigation. The other official, Shai Brosh, was a top navy official, reaching the rank of brigadier general, until 2001. The Justice Ministry said that the announcement regarding Bar-Yosef was delayed because he was out of the country when the December 5 announcement came down. Brosh’s part in the case is connected to Bar-Yosef as a middleman for passing messages with other allied conspirators. The two men join two top former aides to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a former commander of the navy and others who are under the gun for bribery and a variety of crimes in Case 3000. The decisions are subject to pre-indictment hearings which have been delayed to date by working through a security protocol with the IDF. In November 2018, the police recommended that several of Netanyahu’s top aides be indicted for a scheme to skim off the top of large deals in which Germany’s Thyssenkrupp firm was selling Israel nuclear submarines. Netanyahu himself was not a suspect at the time, though there were later developments which the police are still probing regarding Netanyahu’s potential financial connections to the affair. The two top Netanyahu officials are David Shimron, who has served as a Netanyahu confidante, lawyer and is also his cousin, as well as David Sharan, who served as his chief of staff. Shimron stands accused of money-laundering, while Sharan stands accused of bribery, money-laundering, breach of trust and violation of campaign financing laws. Eliezer Marom is the former chief of the navy accused of bribery, money-laundering and tax crimes. Yuval Steinitz, who at various times served as finance minister and then as energy minister, has two aides, Rami Taib and Yitzhak Liber, who are accused of serving as middle men in the bribery scheme and money-laundering and aiding in tax fraud respectively. Steinitz himself has never been a suspect, though the prosecution statement says that Bar Yosef acted to persuade Thyssenkrupp official Walter Freitag of his and Ganor’s usefulness by obtaining a meeting for Freitag with Steinitz. Former minister Eliezer Zandburg 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 2012-2016. Miki Ganor, who at one point was the state’s witness who helped break the case open, but later recanted his cooperation with the state, is accused of bribery, money-laundering, tax crimes and violating campaign finance laws. He received NIS 10,402,971 from Thyssenkrupp for his success in advancing deals between Israel and the company regarding the nuclear submarines. However, according to the prosecution statement, a significant part of how he advanced the deals was by paying bribes to a variety of Israeli officials in the national security architecture. Notably absent from the announcements has been Netanyahu confidante Yitzhak Molcho. It has been rumored for a long time that Molcho would not be indicted. There is no mentioning of Netanyahu as a suspect, though the spin-off cases from the Submarine Affair regarding Netanyahu’s finances are still at an initial stage. Still, the fact that those issues are not mentioned in the announcement could indicate that Netanyahu is fully off the hook from even the Case 3000 spin-off issues. Prior to 2011, Israel had already bought five nuclear submarines from Thyssenkrupp. But starting in 2011, Israel pursued buying a sixth submarine. As of 2015, Israel started to pursue buying three more submarines, to bring the number to nine. All of this occurred during the time of the scheme by Ganor. Regarding Marom, the prosecution statement said that he received NIS 557,000 in bribes from Ganor between 2014-2016. Allegedly, Ganor paid Marom for furthering the scheme in his role as chief of the navy, while trying to cover-up the payments by only paying Marom after he retired from the navy and by funneling payments through straw companies controlled by the two men. They also forged documents as if to show Marom had provided legitimate consulting services. Starting in 2014 and after, Ganor allegedly paid Bar-Yosef NIS 420,000 for the deputy national security council adviser’s role in getting Ganor appointed to his role in 2009 as well as facilitating Ganor’s deals via the prime minister’s office and the Knesset. The NIS 420,000 came after Ganor refused Bar Yosef’s initial demand for 1 million euros. To cover up the illegalities, the two forged documents alleging 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 payments of NIS 35,000 and NIS 58,000 to Sharan for advancing Ganor and the scheme’s interests both as chief-of-staff for Steinitz and later as chief of staff for Netanyahu. The NIS 58,000 was sent to Sharan through Liber. Ganor brought Shimron into the case to sign onto various banking documents which he wanted to avoid personally signing on due to various 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 implicated a conflict of interest between him and the chairman of the fund, Atalia Rosenbaum. Shimron signed the banking documents and was due to transfer 80% of two payments (one for $40,000 and one for $100,000) he received from the bank to Ganor. While Shimron did transfer most of the $40,000 to Ganor – after taking a 20% commission – he was unable to transfer most of the $100,000 to Ganor due to suspicions by some of the banks involved. Shimron and Ganor then presented false documents to the involved banks to facilitate the funds transfer. Ganor served as a state’s witness for an extended period, but recanted from cooperating after he realized that even as a state’s witness, most of his funds overseas had been frozen and were not being protected by Israeli police. Lawyers for the defendants have rejected the charges.
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