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Manbar Found Guilty of Treason
By Zvi Harel, Ha'aretz Legal Correspondent and Agencies
Thursday, June 18, 1998
Nachum Manbar, an Israeli businessman, was convicted yesterday of
treason for illegally selling chemical and biological weapons components
and know-how to Iran for $16 million. Manbar could receive life in prison
when he is sentenced on July 15.
Manbar was secretly arrested in March 1997 and his trial was held
behind closed doors, except for yesterday's verdict hearing.
"Nachum Manbar... sacrificed the security and well-being of the state on
the altar of his unchecked avarice," wrote Tel Aviv District Court Judge
Amnon Strasnov in the verdict, in which Manbar was convicted of the
most serious of the charges against him.
Manbar was found guilty of three offenses: aiding the enemy in its war
against Israel, attempting to aid the enemy in its war against Israel, and
passing know-how to the enemy in order to harm state security. The
maximum sentence for each of these crimes is life.
However, Manbar was acquitted of charges of obstructing justice and
breaching a gag order.
Israel and Iran have been in a technical state of war since the Islamic
revolution there in 1979. Israel has been the most vocal in warning that
Iran is close to completing a missile with capabilities of striking the Jewish
state and is advancing its nuclear program.
At the end of his trial, Manbar said that he did not understand why he
alone had been tried. "If I am guilty, so are at least 200 people. Maybe I
am guilty of naivete but definitely not of trying to harm the country,"
Manbar, who defines himself as an Israeli patriot, told reporters. Manbar
was defended by attorneys Amnon Zichroni and Dror Arad-Ayalon.
Manbar left Israel in 1985 and has been living since then in Europe, from
where he ran his various enterprises.
According to attorney Dvora Chen, head of the prosecutor general's
security crimes division, in 1990 Manbar met with an Iranian contact,
Majed Abasbur, who headed Iran's chemical weapons project and
served as an adviser to the Iranian president. Abasbur asked Manbar to
supply Iran with raw materials for chemical warfare, as well as
know-how and equipment to set up a chemical-warfare plant in Iran.
The prosecutor claimed that Manbar supplied the Iranians as requested,
and under the agreement between them, he undertook to supply the
ingredients necessary for the production of mustard and nerve gas.
The prosecutor specifically claimed that between 1990 and 1994, Manbar
supplied the Iranians with tons of raw materials and equipment, which
was transported from Europe to Iran in 24 truckloads.
Regarding Manbar's testimony, Strasnov wrote, "My impression of his
testimony and personality was totally and utterly negative. His testimony
was full of contradictions... to say nothing of outright lies." One of the
central items of evidence presented against Manbar was the agreement
he signed with the Iranians, which Strasnov said the defendant had tried
hard to hide from the Israeli authorities.
Regarding Manbar's patriotism, Strasnov wrote in his verdict that even if
it had not been proved that Manbar had directly intended to harm the
State of Israel, he was clearly aware of the ominous results of selling
equipment and materials to an enemy state, Iran, that could be used in
chemical warfare against Israel and other countries.
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