http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1076264.html
Last update - 17:36 03/04/2009
Police grill Lieberman for second time in three days
By Jonathan Lis and Barak Ravid, Haaretz Correspondents
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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