5/31/2014 Whistle-blower support resources - Seema Sapra, General Electric whistle-blower in India: The battle of Rafi Rotem - Israeli

whistle-blower
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Whistle-blower support resources - Seema
Sapra, General Electric whistle-blower in
India

Saturday, 10 May 2014

The battle of Rafi Rotem - Israeli whistle-blower
http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.531402
Israel's anti-corruption whistle-blower needs justice
Rafi Rotem, a senior investigator at the Tax Authority, exposed serious corruption and was
fired. Hes still harassed by the police.
By Aryeh Eldad | 02:19 23.06.13
Only a few times have I hesitated so much before writing. I hesitate because I'm almost
certain that this article will be detrimental to the person it's about. All the same, in an
interview in Haaretz's Hebrew edition on June 7, former Attorney General Menachem
Mazuz discusses the possibility that organized crime has infected the top of Israel's
government bureaucracy.
"The one scandal where it was possible to speak in these terms, making it the most serious
corruption scandal in certain respects, is the Tax Authority scandal," Mazuz said. In this
scandal, senior Tax Authority officials and former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's bureau
chief, Shula Zaken, were convicted of fraud. At issue were bribes for appointing people
chosen by outside interests.
Mazuz latter added, "If the process hadn't been cut short in its early stages, within a few
years the Tax Authority's upper ranks would have been staffed by people who owed their
appointments to outside interests." Mazuz may be troubled by the light punishments meted
out in this case, but he's confident the process at the Tax Authority was "cut short" at the
start. Can this be true?
What about the case of Rafi Rotem, a senior investigator at the Tel Aviv office of the Tax
Authority's customs department, who exposed serious corruption at the authority and was
eventually fired. He now wanders around Tel Aviv, persecuted by the police, who harass him
every time an article is published about him.
Rotem's case shows that the corruption at the Tax Authority, and more gravely, at the police
and State Prosecutor's Office that are linked to it, hasn't been eradicated. The person who
exposed the corruption has been punished while the corrupt continue to serve and be
promoted. The stables haven't been cleaned out.
The case consists of hundreds of documents, videos and recordings that Rotem sent to the
Tel Aviv police and prosecutors, but the case was closed in several hours (before, of course,
the material could be perused ). So there are clear concerns that the system is still rotten. A
few senior Tax Authority officials have been brought to trial and convicted, but they're just
Home
5/31/2014 Whistle-blower support resources - Seema Sapra, General Electric whistle-blower in India: The battle of Rafi Rotem - Israeli whistle-blower
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the tip of the iceberg.
Rotem's accusations are much more serious and worrisome. Rotem detailed the apparent
cooperation between senior Tax Authority officials and big-time criminals, smugglers and
tycoons. Included in this affair is the mysterious death of one of his informers, who Rotem
believes was killed after he was exposed by a Tax Authority employee. The police closed the
case claiming that it was suicide despite big question marks at the scene of the killing.
Journalists Kalman Liebskind, Moshe Lichtman and Malka Taicher-Miller wrote about
Rotem, and Channel 1's TV news program "Mabat Sheni" covered the case. And every time
after an article about Rotem was published, the police arrested him.
Rotem was handcuffed and humiliated, beaten and sent to jail, only to be released the next
day by the first judge to consider whether to extend his detention. The police know full well
that these detentions won't be extended, but they have power and use it against those who
accuse them of corruption and cooperation with criminals.
Rotem is a tough man. The proof is that he's still alive. Otherwise he surely would have
committed suicide. He lost everything since he set out on his campaign for justice, including
home, family and property. He lives in the street. And it's a horrible lesson for anyone
considering exposing an act of corruption.
Hans Kohlhase was born around the year 1500 near Berlin. On his way to a fair, an
anonymous noble stole his horses. Since he didn't receive justice, he set out to destroy
everyone who had abused him in the state of Saxony. The countryside drowned in blood
until he was caught and executed by being broken on the wheel.
Heinrich von Kleist's novella "Michael Kohlhaas" transformed Kohlhase into a historical fable.
Will the attorney general, the state comptroller, the justice minister, the public security
minister or the finance minister set up a parliamentary or government investigative
committee to provide justice before the breaking wheel finishes its work on Rafi Rotem?
http://www.jpost.com/National-News/Homeless-whistle-blower-gets-indictment-for-
allegedly-harassing-police-327606
A 13-page indictment presented on Tuesday for the first time to homeless Tax Authority
whistle-blower Rafi Rotem contained accusations of repeated harassment of public servants,
including police from the north Tel Aviv precinct.
In most of the alleged cases listed in the indictment, Rotem, a longtime intelligence officer
with the Tel Aviv branch of the Tax Authoritys investigations department, sent faxes or
called police on dozens of occasions, typically referring to them as corrupt or incompetent.
Rotem, according to the allegations, sends faxes on a near-daily basis to all kinds of people
heads of the Israel Police and the Public Security Ministry (in charge of Israel Police), the
State Comptrollers Office, State Prosecutors and journalists who have since stopped
answering his calls.
As Rotem and his lawyer have not yet had a chance to view the document, the court set the
next hearing for mid-February.
Rotem, who for the past several years has been living on the street, first began working as an
investigator for the Tax Authority in 1984. In 2003, he was one of 15 senior authority
investigators who complained of corruption within the organizations ranks.
5/31/2014 Whistle-blower support resources - Seema Sapra, General Electric whistle-blower in India: The battle of Rafi Rotem - Israeli whistle-blower
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Seema Sapra at 04:55

The so-called document of the 15 called for a commission of inquiry into allegations of
corruption inside the authority, including what it alleges are connections between then senior
Tax Authority officials and known crime figures in Israel who were subject to investigations
by the authority.
Among the 14 officials who joined Rotem in the complaint in 2003 was Shuki Mashul, then
head of the Tel Aviv branch of the authoritys VAT department, whom the authority
terminated in 2006 in what he and Rotem say was payback for speaking out a charge the
Tax Authority denies. Mashul joined Rotem at the courthouse on Tuesday morning, where
he called the proceedings a disgrace.
Mashul made mention of a Facebook post on Monday by Labor Party leader Shelly
Yacimovich, in which she accused Ashdod Port union head Alon Hassan of being a corrupt
thug.
So when an elected leader goes on Facebook and publicly says someone is corrupt, its OK,
but when a private citizen sends a fax calling someone corrupt, its harassment, its an
indictment? he wrote.
The State of Israel wants Rafi Rotem dead, thats how they want this to end, Rotem said
about his case, adding, Im not afraid of them, they can lock me up for 100 years if they
want to. This is the biggest mafia case there has ever been in Israel.
Rotem, a 51-year-old native of Jaffas Bulgarian neighborhood, has been on an unpaid
leave of absence since 2005, not long after he was reassigned to work as a clerk at a Tax
Authority branch in Ramle in 2004, which he said was punishment for speaking out. He
spends his nights on the street, sleeping in hotel lobbies, in his car or on a friends couch
when hes lucky. He gets by scrounging together a few shekels a day for a roll with some cold
cuts, supplementing the sandwiches with free samples from supermarkets in north Tel Aviv.
The rest of his worldly belongings including dozens of boxes full of documents from his
years as an intelligence officer with the Tel Aviv branch of the Tax Authoritys investigations
department are crammed inside a storage locker underneath the offices of the Maariv
newspaper in Tel Aviv.
Rotem has been the subject of a number of recent TV and radio news segments covering his
case. In a column in Haaretz in June, headlined The corruption fighter who became
homeless, former MK Aryeh Eldad said Rotem lost everything since he set out on his
campaign for justice, including home, family and property. He lives on the street. And its a
horrible lesson for anyone considering exposing an act of corruption.
The Tax Authority has repeatedly denied all of Rotems allegations, saying that he and
Mashul have chosen to use the media to settle their personal accounts with their managers
and that there has been no proof found to substantiate any of their allegations.
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Seema Sapra
I am a lawyer who has filed a whistle-blower corruption petition against General Electric Company in the
Delhi High Court.
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