Asher Yadlin may have flushed away his career when he disposed of certain documents in the toilet of his Tel Aviv home. The papers were retrieved by a plumber called last week to clear a blocked drain pipe. Yadlin, who had been nominated for the office of Governor of the Bank of Israel, was detained by police the next day for questioning and was subsequently arraigned on charges of accepting bribes and other illegal activities. The Cabinet rescinded his appointment Sunday.
The plumber said he found a “huge” quantity of documents more or less intact in the pipe and kept them because they contained names he had seen in newspaper accounts of the Yadlin investigation. The plumber claimed that his workshop was broken into during the night and that the papers were delivered to the police who dried them out and studied them for evidence in the Yadlin case.
Israelis noted that the Yadlin affair was becoming more like Watergate every day. It not only has an “Ehrlichman”–Chave Ehrlichman, Yadlin’s rejected lover who allegedly exposed him for revenge–but a “plumber” as well.
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