JERUSALEM — As a Tel Aviv court prepared to hand down sentencing on Nahum Manbar — convicted of supplying weapons materials to Iran — a scandal was erupting this week around one of the judges assigned to the case, Amnon Strashnov.
Defense attorney Amnon Zichroni on Wednesday asked Tel Aviv District Court Judge Strashnov to disqualify himself from the case because Strashnov allegedly discussed the trial with a lawyer formerly from Zichroni’s office.
However, Zichroni’s request was denied in court, and sentencing was scheduled to proceed yesterday.
On June 17, the three judges found Manbar guilty of treason for selling material, equipment, and know-how to Iran for its chemical warfare program.
The brouhaha began Monday, when Labor Knesset member Nissim Zvilli accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of attempting to influence Strashnov in Manbar’s sentencing.
The premier’s office denied that Netanyahu had had any contacts with Strashnov, either during the trial or after the conviction was handed down.
Commenting on the verdict when it was announced, Netanyahu had said he hoped the court would impose a heavy sentence. He called Manbar a criminal who committed a terrible act, the likes of which he could not recall in the history of the state.
Zichroni, in turn, accused Netanyahu of interfering with the judicial process by making such statements before sentencing was completed.
Zvilli said this week that he had obtained information from sources “very close to the Manbar trial” that Netanyahu had tried to intervene in the legal process.
The plot thickened on Tuesday, when a panel of three High Court justices rejected a petition by Zichroni asking it to nullify the trial, because of Strashnov’s alleged links with Pninat Yanai, 26, a lawyer who apprenticed in Strashnov’s office for six months and then joined Zichroni’s firm, where she worked for a year.
Zichroni alleged, in fact, that Yanai improperly had dealings with Strashnov, General Security Service agent “Nir” — said to have headed the investigation of Manbar — and Shai Bazak, Netanyahu’s spokesman.
According to the petition, the 51-year-old Strashnov had courted Yanai while the latter had interned for him between September 1996 and March 1997, and the two had established some sort of sexual relationship.
After she left his office, the two remained in contact. Strashnov allegedly continued to pursue Yanai sexually and the two frequently discussed the trial.
Yanai joined Zichroni’s firm at the end of May 1997, after Manbar’s trial had begun, and was assigned to work on Manbar’s defense team.
Zichroni also charged that Yanai had close ties with Bazak, and that Netanyahu had been in touch with Strashnov during the trial.
The judges rejected his petition, however, ruling that Zichroni should make use of the standard legal procedures for pressing his demands. Those include asking the judge to disqualify himself from the case, or appealing Manbar’s conviction to the Supreme Court and asking it to accept as new information the charges raised in the petition.
The court drama on Tuesday was enhanced by the presence of Yanai, who asked to add her name to the petition as a respondent and hired Avigdor Feldman to represent her.
Outside in the corridor, surrounded by an army of photographers and journalists, she denied Zichroni’s charges and launched a counterattack.
Zichroni’s accusations are “a low and despicable act of brutality,” Yanai said. “He was very insulted that he lost the Manbar case. His reputation was damaged and he is intoxicated with his good name. So he decided to go one step too far. He is blaming me for his failure.”
As for her relations with Strashnov, Yanai said: “I did not have any romantic or intimate relationship [with him]. I had a friendly, close relationship. He is a very nice man, a very friendly man. I had casual conversations with the judge, conversations which had nothing to do in any way with the trial.”