The agreement to compensate brothers Menashe and Mordechai Malamud, friends of Prime minister Ariel Sharon, for expropriation of their land for the Cross Israel Highway, has no legal validity, and is null and void, Attorney General Elyakim Rubinstein finds. In his decision, published today, Rubinstein accepts the recommendations of the team that investigated the matter.
The affair broke out following a report in "Globes" that Sharon intervened in the negotiations between the state and has longstanding acquaintances from Kfar Malal. As a result of his intervention, the compensation offered to the Malamud brothers rose to $720,000.
Rubinstein finds that Sharon ought not to have intervened in teh matter. It was a case of individual treatment of a matter outside the normal scope of the prime minister's work. Sharon's behavior, Rubinstein writes, went against the principle of equality, and was liable to cause the officials dealing with the compensation matter to be swayed by extraneous considerations, since consciously or otherwise they would seek to comply with the prime minister's wishes.
Nevertheless, no basis was found for suspecting any financial connection between Sharon and the Malamud brothers. Nor was Sharon found to have been closely involved in the compensation negotiations. Rubinstein concludes that, having regard to the level of proof required in a criminal case, it is not possible to find that the prime minister's behavior was corrupt.
Rubinstein decided not t take disciplinary action against Minister of Transport director-general Ben Zion Salman and the head of the Public Works Department, who agreed to the raised compensation for the Malamud brothers.
Published by Globes [online] - www.globes.co.il - on November 10, 2003