Alon Hassan convicted after state appeals

Alon Hassan
Alon Hassan

The Supreme Court sent Ashdod Port strongman Hassan's case to the Beer Sheva District court for sentencing.

The Supreme Court accepted the state's appeal this week and convicted former Ashdod Port workers' committee chairman Alon Hassan on two counts of fraud and breach of trust by a public servant, and two counts of corporate fraud and breach of trust. Hassan was acquitted of all the charges against him, which included bribery, in the Beersheva District Court. 

Supreme Court Justices Yosef Elron, Neal Hendel, and George Karra unanimously convicted Hassan of fraud and breach of trust by a public servant and corporate fraud and breach of trust. As chairman of the Ashdod Port workers' committee, Hassan gave minutes of the Ashdod Port board of directors and the port's internal audit report to a company named Dana Port Group, thereby putting himself in a clear conflict between Ashdod Port's interest, that of Dana Port, and his own interest in the results of the legal proceedings by Dana Port against Ashdod Port.

By a two-to-one majority, with Elron dissenting, Hassan was convicted of fraud and breach of trust by a public servant and corporate fraud and breach of trust for his intervention in the scrap metal exporters affair. As chairman of the Ashdod Port workers' committee, he took part in a meeting aimed at finding a solution to the port workers' strike in 2011, during which loading of scrap metal on ships was halted. A representative of Dana Port attended this meeting, and the justices disagreed about whether the company offered its services at this stage in supervising the scrap metal loading, so that this work could be resumed.

The court emphasized that even though it left Hassan's acquittal of some of the charges standing, the general picture showed that on more than one occasion, Hassan behaved as though Ashdod Port was his personal property, and did not hesitate to interfere in many matters that were none of his business, or even worse, when his intervention could be seen as improper. The court ruled that Hassan was on the borderline between criminal and non-criminal behavior. Even though the court did not see fit to convict him on some of the criminal charges, it took no position on the propriety of his actions from an administrative and disciplinary standpoint.

The court returned Hassan's case to the Beersheva District Court for sentencing.

Published by Globes, Israel business news - en.globes.co.il - on December 5, 2019

© Copyright of Globes Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd. 2019

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