Herzog case closed for lack of evidence
AG claims there is 'not sufficient evidence' to substantiate the allegations that the leader of the opposition received illegal donation to his 2013 campaign and that he knew of funds being used in a smear campaign against MK Shelly Yachimovich; the possibility of indicting Shimon Batat, an official in the election campaign, and Gilad Ramot, who donated the money, remains a possibility.
Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit announced on Monday that the case against Leader of the Opposition Isaac Herzog will be closed for insufficient evidence. However, sufficient evidence against an official in the election campaign and a private company owner has been gathered.
The concluded investigation was centered on the suspicion that Herzog had received illegal donations that had not been reported during the Labor party primary elections in 2013. The investigation began following suspicion that a smear campaign against Labor MK Shelly Yachimovich had been funded with improperly reported donations that might have been illegal. Herzog was later implicated in the smear campaign and was consequently investigated with the approval of the Attorney General.
In addition to Herzog, several other figures were interrogated as part of the investigation, among them Shimon Batat—a top official in the elections' campaign—and Gilad Ramot—the owner of a private company.
The investigation concluded that during the 2013 primaries, Ramot used NIS 40,000 to fund a smear campaign targeting Yachimovich, who ran against Herzog for the party leadership. Herzog also signed a deposition saying that the state comptroller had not been informed of the supposedly illegal donation. Batat, who had run Herzog's campaign, was suspected of heading the smear campaign against Yachimovich.
Despite these conclusions, the investigation did not find evidence that linked Herzog to any criminal offenses, as he was not found to have known about said donation. Batat and Ramot, however, did not get off so easily, as Batat was found to have falsified documents, and both were found to have received an illicit donation.
Two years later, it was revealed that the person who initiated the campaign against Yachimovich was Daniel Cohen, a lawyer.
According to the attorney general, "Herzog's testimony that he was not aware of a smear campaign against Labor MK Shelly Yachimovich running simultaneously while his own campaign was taking place, and that the smear campaign was run by Cohen in the framework of his own campaign, does not fully line up with Cohen's testimony, which is supported by the evidence.
"However, even if it were possible to presume that Cohen had some agreement with Herzog to run the smear campaign, we cannot attribute any responsibility or awareness on Herzog's part that Ramot paid Cohen for running the smear campaign on any level sufficient enough to raise a criminal case for election violations against him, and therefore the case was closed.
"Contrarily, in the case of Batat and Ramot, we have gathered sufficient evidence to prove their part in committing the aforementioned felonies, and so I believe that a criminal case against them can be built and that there is also a public interest to do so. The Tel Aviv district attorney will notify the two of the possibility of their prosecution… so they may prepare and petition accordingly."
Herzog welcomed Mandelblit's decision: "I have always believed that it would be proven that I acted properly and without any flaw in my behavior, and I'm glad that this is the case already at this stage."
Daniel Haklai, Gilad Ramot's attorney, stated, "Mr. Ramot never intended to commit any criminal act. He never intended to donate illegally. Mr. Ramot assumed that he was paying a fee to a lawyer he was not familiar with for professional services regarding a legal matter that was important to him both personally and publicly. He did not and could not have known that there is any intention to transfer the donation he thought will be used to pay for professional service fees to fund some campaign in the Labor party preliminaries.
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"A hearing will be held soon regarding Mr. Ramot, and we will try to convince the Tel Aviv district attorney and the attorney general to abstain from filing an indictment against him. Mr. Ramot is convinced of his innocence and hopes that the attorney general will understand that there is no reason to indict him."
