Yadlin Pleads Guilty to Charges That He Had Accepted Bribes

Asher Yadlin, sobbing that his career has been ruined and his character brutally maligned by the press, pleaded guilty in a Tel Aviv district court today to charges that he accepted bribes and evaded taxes when he headed Kupat Holim, the Histadrut sick-fund. Sentence will be pronounced next Tuesday.

Yadlin’s plea implicated the Labor Party and some of its top leaders in the scandal that led to his downfall. It could have serious political repercussions for the party, now engaged in the toughest election campaign in its history.

Yadlin insisted that he had not taken bribes for personal gain but because he was under pressure to contribute Kupat Holim funds to the Labor Party’s coffers. In that connection he named former Finance Minister Pinhas Sapir, who died in 1975, incumbent Finance Minister Yehoshua Rabinowitz and other key Labor Party figures. He said, however, that the recipients of the bribe monies, amounting to IL 80,000, were not aware that it was tainted money. He said these contributions began after the 1973 election campaign and continued.

The prosecution invited the court to disbelieve Yadlin’s contention that he had not pocketed bribes. The defense counsel argued that his client would never have named top party figures if that were not true and produced a signed receipt for IL 70,000 to prove that Yadlin was engaged in fund-raising for the Labor Party. The receipt was signed by the defendant’s cousin, Aharon Yadlin, then secretary general of the Labor Party and now Minister of Education.

PARTY OPEN TO CHARGES

The revelation, it was noted, opens the Labor Party to charges of violating the 1973 law which provides substantial state funding for political parties relative to their representation in the Knesset. The law forbids parties from accepting contributions from companies. They may accept donations by individuals provided they are reported to the State Comptroller. Already, former MK Uri Avneri of the Haolam Haze faction has demanded an official inquiry into the Labor Party’s financing.

Yadlin was taken into custody four months ago, just days before he was to have assumed the important and influential post of Governor of the Bank of Israel to which he had been appointed by Premier Yitzhak Rabin. Rabin and other Labor Party leaders professed to have known nothing of the alleged offenses. The Cabinet did not withdraw its nomination of Yadlin until sufficient evidence was accumulated to support a warrant for his arrest.

The small courtroom, presided over by Judge Hadassah Ben-Ito, was packed with visitors this morning. Yadlin’s family and friends–his wife. Dalia; his friend. Talia; his son and daughter–occupied the front benches. They retained their composure during most of the proceedings but broke down when defense attorney Shlomo Tussia-Cohen called a succession of character witnesses to the stand.

These included Health Minister Victor Shemtov, Mark Mosciewicz, former president of the Israel Manufacturers Association and Gen. (Res.) Meir Amit, head of the Histadrut-owned Koor Industries. They and others were effusive in their praise of Yadlin’s ability, tact, understanding and devotion to the cause of strengthening Israel’s economy.

TESTIFIES ON OWN BEHALF

Yadlin, testifying on his own behalf, drew a distinction between the various bribery charges. He admitted that he had taken a total ofIL 40,000 from his former mistress. Hava Ehrlichman, which he said came from commissions she had earned in various deals involving Kupat Holim. It was Ehrlichman’s statements to police that led to the original charges against Yadlin.

He said the sums he received from her were part of the “complex of intimate relations” that developed between them after the death of Ehrlichman’s husband in 1972. Yadlin said he had done a great deal to help her and she was apparently repaying him. But he insisted that the IL 80,000 he received from lawyer Haim Goshen–he described it as commissions earned from land deals involving Kupat Holim–were not put into his own account but turned over to the Labor Party.

When Judge Ben-Ito observed that these monies may well have been contributed in violation of the law. Yadlin said it was not his responsibility but that of the recipients to “arrange” the absorption of the money in accordance with the relevant legislation.

Yadlin’s guilty plea reversed his earlier plea of not guilty to all charges. Prosecutor Victoria Ostrovsky-Cohen explained that the judge, defense and prosecution had agreed, in light of the plea, to postpone hearings on another bribery count in which Yadlin is accused of accepting $30,000 from Mordechai Elison, head of a Histadrut-owned construction company.