Friends of Asher Yadlin said today that the former head of Kupat Holim was threatening to implicate more key Labor Party figures in the bribe scandal to which he pleaded guilty in a Tel Aviv district court Tuesday. They said Yadlin was bitter over attempts by party leaders to discredit his allegations that he did not pocket the bribes he admits to accepting but turned the money over to the Labor Party.
Yadlin said in his guilty plea that he had been under heavy pressure since 1973 to contribute Kupat Holim funds to the Labor Party which was desperately short of cash. In that connection he named, among others, the late Finance Minister and party boss Pinhas Sapir, incumbent Finance Minister Yehoshua Rabinowitz and his cousin, Education Minister Aharon Yadlin, former Secretary General of the Labor Party.
Yadlin was described as being greatly disturbed by newspaper reports that party officials and senior police officers were maligning his character by saying that most of the bribe money was still in his possession and that a person who admitted accepting bribes was not to be believed or trusted.
Yadlin will be sentenced next Tuesday for the offenses to which he pleaded guilty and faces up to seven years imprisonment. He also faces trial on other charges of bribery, fraud and tax evasion. Sources close to him hinted that he has documents which could inflict serious damage on the Labor Party if they were made public.
LIKUD DEMANDS FULL PROBE
Meanwhile, Likud demands for a full-scale investigation of Labor Party finances threw the Knesset into an uproar yesterday. Likud spokesman Yigal Hurwitz also demanded the resignations of Rabinowitz and Aharon Yadlin. Labor MK Yisrael Kargman retorted that Likud’s finances could not withstand public scrutiny. The chamber echoed with shouting, epithets and accusations hurled at each other by Labor and opposition MKs.
The Likud motion was referred to the State Comptroller’s Committee, the Knesset body concerned with items such as party finances. Likud did not object because it realized that a full-scale debate in the Knesset was not possible as long as the Yadlin case is sub judice.
Finance Minister Rabinowitz admitted that he had asked Yadlin and many other persons to raise money for the Labor Party but insisted that he knew nothing of money contributed by Kupat Holim the Histadrut sick-fund. Such contributions are illegal under the 1973 election financing law which prohibits parties from accepting contributions from companies. Kargman read a statement by Labor Party Secretary General Meir Zarmi declaring that since the 1973 law took effect, the party’s books were open to the scrutiny of the State Comptroller.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
