No more news has been coming up on the case for a few days now. It does not mean that the case has been dismissed. Detection may be going on, all right-but the media people know better than chewing over the same facts again and again, and no new information is available, he remarked in a Novosti interview.
Mr. Herwitz highlighted major differences between the Israeli and Russian investigation arrangements. A case may be remitted for further inquiry in Russia even after an indictment is made. Unlike it, an Israeli investigation finishes with the indictment to bar the prosecution's access to the suspect for information. That is why Israeli justice envisages another stage-secret investigation, to be followed by arrests and indictments.
As far as out informant knows, no one of the Apoalim suspects has been indicted for now. The Israeli justice qualifies as suspects only persons under arrest and those questioned as suspects not witnesses, Mr. Herwitz pointed out.
Leonid Nevzlin, for one, has never been questioned as suspect on the case, so our interviewee does not think the controversial tycoon has been accused of anything.
Mr. Nevzlin was mentioned in initial media reports about the Apoalim affair. The expert had this to remark on that score:
"If I were a newsman, I would think it quite wrong to avoid a reference to him in whatever context. Nevzlin is a household name-which surely can't make him a criminal or suspect. Now, the police people are in no hurry to say they don't suspect him. They think it isn't their job [to whitewash Nevzlin]."
Whatever ruling structures there are race for rights and funds, the expert went on. "To accuse anyone is the last thing I am after, but if I were the police or the money laundering board, I would certainly offer such information to newshounds."
"Big money is behind every sensational case. Who would be after cornering a man who has laundered a hundred thousand shekels? But when the names come up of moneybags worth hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars, no one will ever forget the case, whoever might prove guilty, in the final analysis. If the detection comes to an indictment, and some people are convicted for money laundering, no one will care a straw that certain tycoons were dragged through the mud while quite different people were eventually found guilty. There was a big sensation-that's all the public will remember, and the investigation people will have a reason to demand bigger grants." That is how Mr. Eli Herwitz sees what underlies the Apoalim affair.
Leonid Nevzlin was certainly not indicted on the Apoalim case, Eric Wolf, his adviser, positively said to Novosti. "I can't say who was the first to mention him, and under what circumstances. Police has no claims whatever on him, now at least. He has his bank account in the Apoalim branch that has come under Israeli police investigation-and he has no problems with the account. It works OK. No operations have been thwarted, and the account was not frozen or suspended even for an instant," stressed Mr. Wolf.
