Publisher’s Murder Plot Indictment Rocks Israel

In a sensational case that has portrayed a world of high-level corruption and seedy business tactics, Israeli prosecutors charged a prominent newspaper publisher Sunday with plotting murder and bribing witnesses and police in an attempt to subvert the justice system.

Publisher Ofer Nimrodi of the popular Maariv tabloid, one of the country’s three main newspapers, faces trial on charges that he attempted to hire a private eye to “eliminate” a state witness who was to testify against him in a wiretapping case.

As many as a dozen police officers and prison officials, including two senior commanders, could be brought down along with Nimrodi amid reports that he attempted to buy their favors to influence the investigation. Two police officers already have been fired, and the man widely touted as the next national police commander, Jerusalem Police Chief Yair Yitzhaki, could face punishment for failing to report a meeting he had with Nimrodi.

“This affair has no parallel in the history of Israeli justice in its range and in its attempts to disrupt justice,” the state prosecutor’s office said in a statement.

Nimrodi, scion of a powerful new-money business family with extensive real estate and insurance holdings, did not speak when he appeared Sunday in a Tel Aviv court to hear the 20-page indictment. But he has previously, and repeatedly, denied any wrongdoing. His attorney said Nimrodi was the victim of a blackmail scheme.

The case has riveted Israelis since Nimrodi’s arrest in October--an arrest followed by a storm of revelations, each more startling than the one before it. Newspapers have been filled with details of his alleged attempts to buy off police, to find out what investigators had on him and to use his contacts to stop the investigation. The result has been a vivid picture of a man who acted as though he were above the law and could use his family’s wealth to buy power.

At one point, the country’s attorney general said the alleged corruption, bribing of police and interference with justice were so sordid as to keep him awake at night.

At another, television aired police surveillance tape footage that showed Nimrodi alone in an interrogation room, surreptitiously eating a piece of paper that was thought to have been evidence against him.

Nimrodi last year served a four-month jail sentence for the illegal wiretapping of his staff and of executives of his competition during a fierce circulation battle with another newspaper. The new charges against Nimrodi are based on the testimony of the man he hired to plant the wiretaps, Rafi Pridan. Currently serving a four-year sentence, Pridan claimed Nimrodi gave him $600,000 to get rid of a witness in the bugging case.

Pridan also accused Nimrodi of plotting to murder the publishers of two rival newspapers; however, those charges were not included in the indictment read Sunday. Nimrodi’s attorney called such allegations “imaginary.”

The top commander of a special serious-crimes unit that investigated Nimrodi testified last month that the publisher employed Mafia-style tactics to escape prosecution and undermine the judicial system. The officer, Lt. Cmdr. Moshe Mizrahi, was almost in tears as he told of Nimrodi’s attempts to buy or threaten police investigators. Mizrahi himself said he felt compelled to use a bodyguard.

“The man knew of our investigation the moment we started it,” Mizrahi said at a hearing to consider whether Nimrodi should be kept in jail pending his formal indictment. “He knew our every move, and he knew what point we had reached at every stage.”

Nimrodi has stepped aside from his positions as chief executive of Israel Land Development Co. and chairman of Maariv holdings for the duration of the case. The family’s money comes originally from Nimrodi’s father, Yaacov, a onetime arms dealer who was subpoenaed by the United States in 1987 in the Iran-Contra scandal.

Even after his wiretapping conviction, Nimrodi remained powerful and was seen in all the best circles. Current and former prime ministers attended his wedding this year.

Israeli state radio reported Sunday night that Nimrodi went so far as to meet with Prime Minister Ehud Barak three months ago to ask for a pardon in the wiretapping conviction. Barak denied his request, saying he did not have the power to grant pardons, the radio said.

The case has disturbed many Israelis and prompted a round of soul-searching in the press.

“Formerly we took pride in being a ‘country under external attack’ where every citizen could take a walk with utter complacency in his city or neighborhood--a young state whose workers, clerks, policemen and elected officials mostly obeyed the law, kept order and had clean hands,” the top-selling newspaper, Yediot Aharonot, editorialized after Nimrodi’s arrest. “All of this has suddenly disintegrated before our very eyes. Israel appears to its citizens as a violent and corrupt country, in need of an urgent and fundamental change in values. Without such a transformation, our homeland will collapse.”

If found guilty on all counts, Nimrodi faces as much as 35 years in prison, Israeli radio said.