Corruption investigations continue for Avigdor Liberman

Police questioned Avigdor Lieberman as part of a corruption investigation on Friday for the second time since he was sworn in as foreign minister earlier this week.Fraud squad detectives questioned the foreign minister, who is also chairman of the Yisrael Beiteinu party, for more than five hours and said another round was likely in the coming week.

On Thursday, Lieberman was questioned for more than seven hours over suspicions of bribery, money laundering, fraud and breach of trust, less than a day after he took office.

National fraud unit detectives questioned him under caution as part of a probe into his business-dealings proceeds.

Police sources said Lieberman may be indicted within a few months. Lieberman denies any wrongdoing and says the probe is politically motivated.

Lieberman's with the detectives came after a senior member of his right-wing party, Yitzhak Aharonovitch, assumed the position of public security minister in charge of police.

Police have questioned Lieberman several times throughout his political career. Since he was questioned about an alleged money laundering affair in April 2007, detectives have gathered thousands of possibly incriminating documents.

About 1,000 of these documents were confiscated from Lieberman's attorney's office. Some 2,500 additional ones were gathered by the investigation team in Cyprus. These detail the activities of various companies that constituted part of Lieberman and his colleagues' laundering network. They include bank documents listing money transfers and several accounts allegedly opened by Lieberman's associates.

The detectives believe they have evidence tying Lieberman to the money transfers made to the Cyprus accounts.

Tel Aviv Magistrate Benny Sagi studied the evidence compiled by the police in January about the bank accounts attributed to Lieberman in January, concluding that "the inquiry has taken another most significant turn, which increases the suspicion."

Lieberman is not suspected of one-time transfers or of transferring low sums, "but with depositing considerable sums into those accounts, sometimes in millions of shekels," Sagi said. "In some cases we're dealing with orderly, regular monthly deposits."

After compiling the documents earlier this year the fraud unit accelerated the investigation against Lieberman.

In January fraud unit detectives questioned Lieberman's daughter, Michal, on suspicion of being a conduit for funnelling money into his accounts through the company M.L.1, which she owned.

Lieberman's lawyer, Yoav Many, who also serves as the party's legal adviser, and five other confidants were also detained in the current bribery investigation.

Many is suspected of setting up a number of straw companies and opening bank accounts intended for laundering large sums of money.

One of the other detainees, Sharon Shalom, was Lieberman's personal aide when the latter served as national infrastructure minister. Shalom has been serving as CEO of M.L.1. He allegedly managed several straw companies through which funds were funnelled into Lieberman's accounts. "This investigation has been going on for 13 years. In today's investigation Lieberman cooperated and answered investigators' questions," Lieberman's spokeswoman Irena Etinger said.

She said he has long wanted to end the 13-year-long investigation of him, and he has even appealed to the High Court of Justice in an effort to do so.

A spokesperson from the foreign minister's office said that Lieberman "is interested in ending this affair that has continued for 13 years, and hopes that the investigation will be concluded soon and the truth will come out. The foreign minister cooperated with the investigators and answered their questions, and even enjoyed drinking coffee with them."

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'Abbas spies passed intelligence to Israelis'

Prominent Hamas figure Salah al-Bardaweel accuses Mahmoud Abbas of direct involvement in the Gaza war through his spies in the region.

Bardaweel said Monday that Abbas, the acting Palestinian Authority Chief, played key role in the war and in assassinating Hamas' senior political leaders, through his spies in the costal strip.

The Hamas figure alleged that the spies passed strategic intelligence to Israeli soldiers attacking Gaza, The News reported."We had arrested a number of them (Abbas' spies) prior to the Israeli assault, and we found with them plans showing homes of Hamas' leaders, and places where Hamas stores it weapons. They (the spies) have admitted their guilt and told us names of their masters, who would, in turn, inform the Israeli intelligence apparatuses of that information in order to facilitate the Israeli mission," Bardaweel added.

The interior minister in the Hamas-led government, Saeed Siyam, was one of the most senior Hamas figures killed in Operation Cast Lead. Israeli warplanes also bombed the house of Nabil Amrin and Nizar Rayyan, two Hamas commanders in the costal sliver, killing them along with their family members.

"This is a great honor for us, and it serves as clear-cut evidence that Hamas' leaders weren't hiding in underground bunkers as detractors of Hamas would like to portray, and that our leaders are sacrificing their lives with their people and Hamas was never defeated by losing leaders," said Bardaweel, "if one leader dies a 1000 leaders are ready to take his position."

Speaking on the Egyptian initiative, Bardaweel added that Israel embraced defeat when Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert announced a unilateral seize fire, describing it as a victory for the resistance movement.

Earlier in the day, democratically-elected Prime Minister Ismail Haniya, explained that Israeli incursion into Gaza was a failure for Tel Aviv that had originally described toppling Hamas as their main objective in the operations.

However, Israeli officials later downgraded the objectives, saying they only sought to weaken the Hamas movement and end rocket attacks on their communities.

Haniya suggested that since Israel failed to achieve its goals, it was therefore the Palestinians who were victorious for having been able to counter the Israeli aggression.

Israel launched the aggression on December 27, in form of seaborne and airborne attacks and later expanded the invasion into a full-fledged ground inclusion on January 3.

The onslaught left at least 1,300 Palestinians dead - including 411 children - and about 5,400 other wounded.

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Busted! Haaretz scrubs story about IDF impersonating Hamas

by Maasanova

“By Way Of Deception Thou Shalt Do War.” - the official motto of Mossad

The story of Israeli Defense Force troops impersonating Hamas militants somehow made it onto the Haaretz news wire. Blacklisted News was able to snag a screen capture before Haaretz purged the story from the site. For proof that the story was in fact memory-holed a la “1984″ click here.

What I find most interesting is why Haaretz printed this story in the first place, and then obviously, why it was removed and replaced by this story: “Obama: Gaza war underscores need for immediate Mideast solution.”

You’ll notice that the first sixteen or so comments are in response to the article of the IDF troops posing as Hamas, and then the remaining comments are in response to the Obama article.

source

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The Olmert Scandal Deepens as Investigators Find New Evidence Of His Guilt

Following a third round of questioning of Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert, amid fresh claims that he defrauded several charities and state institutions to pay for the same trips abroad and to fund family vacations, the Israeli police and Justice Ministry released a joint statement saying they are widening a corruption investigation against the Israeli premier.

The police and State Prosecutor's Office are now simultaneously handling six allegations of corruption against Olmert. This is the sixth time that he has been investigated in three years and due to the new evidence and the severity of the allegations the investigating team has been enlarged.However, this time the accusations appear so serious and there is little doubt that Olmert will survive politically. There is also widespread speculation that this affair will bring his Kadima party down as the party prepares to hold primary elections in September.

The State Prosecutor's Office will need some time to decide whether to charge the prime minister, but should an indictment be filed, Olmert has already promised to leave office.

However, Olmert has vigorously denied the accusations that he stole thousands of dollars from charities, calling them "distorted and despicable."

But a source close to the investigation claimed that Olmert actually further implicated himself during intense questioning.

"It could be said that Olmert was unable to extricate himself from the cloud of suspicion," an official said on Sunday of the allegations that the prime minister had asked several charities and state institutions to pay for the same trips abroad and used the money to fund family vacations.

Furthermore, sources within his Kadima party, including Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, and Minister of Internal Security Avi Dichter, assert that Olmert is also attempting to sabotage a vote involving the recruitment of a majority needed to alter Kadima's code that would enable the upcoming September primaries.

When the primaries are held, there is little doubt that these will spell the end of Olmert's less than illustrious career.

Originally Olmert was being investigated primarily for allegedly receiving bribe money, worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, from American businessman Morris Talansky during his tenure as Jerusalem mayor and minister of industry and trade.

The latest allegations now involve Olmert double-dipping by asking for and receiving money from organizations primarily in Israel and primarily involved in public activity, to finance his family trips abroad.

Olmert's travel agency, Rishon Tours, allegedly sent invoices to each organization who gave money for the same flights, as though each had been the only contributor.

Each organization then received a receipt for the trip that it had funded and the remainder of the money, apparently $100,000 accumulated over the years, was deposited in a private banking account belonging to Olmert.

The agencies which allegedly funded Olmert's trips include AKIM, a charity geared toward aiding mentally disabled children; ALEH, a group that cares for physically challenged children; Yad Vashem; the Simon Wiesenthal Center; and American Friends of the Israeli Defense Forces.

Consequently, the political fallout from the latest allegations has involved the entire spectrum of Israel's political make-up with sources from the radical left to the ultra-conservative right lambasting Olmert.

The latest suspicions against Olmert "reinforce the demand that he fight for his innocence as a private citizen, rather than as a prime minister," the left-leaning Meretz Chairman Haim Oron said, while Knesset Member Shelly Yacimovich (Labor) called on the prime minister to resign immediately.

The prime minister "should not wait for his dismissal in the September primaries, but rather, announce his resignation immediately. The Israeli public is entitled to have a prime minister who is not facing criminal suspicions," she told the Israeli daily Haaretz.

Meanwhile, the chairman of the hawkish Likud party, Gideon Sa'ar said it would be interesting to see how the Labor party will be justifying its decision to remain in the Olmert government.

"Labor's membership in the Olmert government carries moral and public turpitude," he said.

Regional politicians, from Israel's Palestinian negotiating partners to Syria's Bashar al-Assad, are also only too well aware of Olmert's weakness and his desperate attempt to make some political headway in a last-bid attempt to salvage what remains of his tattered reputation.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on the one hand is hoping that peace talks on the Israeli-Palestinian issue will be accelerated as these might be put on hold indefinitely should a domestic Israeli political crisis arise.

The Syrian leader, on the other hand, stated he is in no rush to help Olmert gain any political brownie points vis-à-vis indirect negotiations over the Golan Heights, which Israel and Syria are currently conducting through the mediation of third-party Turkey.

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