Oh, nice. When the right-wing fuck up, they really fuck up, don’t they.And this is the schmuck who presumes to tell us that Venezuela and Bolivia are full of terrorist infiltrators, drug smugglers and other assorted scum? And the media just blindly believe him? What else is this putz going to say in his monumental arrogance?Well, check out the purty mouth on him:Israeli police today recommended that the hardline foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, be indicted on corruption charges.A police statement said that having completed their inquiries, detectives believed there was sufficient evidence to bring Lieberman to trial on charges of receiving bribes, fraud, deception, breach of trust by a public servant, money laundering, obstruction of justice and tampering with a witness.According to the Ha’aretz newspaper, Lieberman and his associates are suspected of establishing several companies, some of them shell companies, in order to launder millions of shekels and funnel them into his pockets.One of those companies was allegedly headed by Lieberman’s daughter Michal. Police have investigated whether Lieberman continued running these alleged operations even after becoming a public official. In April ‑ days after being sworn in as foreign minister ‑ Lieberman was questioned for more than seven hours over the allegations against him.The attorney general must approve the recommendation from the police before Lieberman is formally charged and it could be weeks or months before a decision is made. Police say the investigation began in 2006 and covered events going back to 2000. The combined maximum sentence for the alleged crimes would be 31 years in prison.
But of course, right-wingers are never criminals. Oh noooooooo.Except, of course, as the passage I cited above this one shows, the investigation has concluded, all right–with the recommendation that charges be pressed. Meaning, Avigdor’s not off the hook. In fact, all his troubles are just barely beginning. At the very least, it means he will have to step down as foreign minister in order to stand trial.For Latin America, meanwhile, the implications are that they won’t have to put up with any more false accusations out of him, because he’s got some pretty damn real ones against himself to contend with. It can also only hurt his party in the next election, and I rather hope it does.And I’ll bet the Iranians and Palestinians would sleep a lot more soundly, too, knowing that the man with the most power to hurt them is going to be out of commission for as long as 31 years.“For 13 years the police have conducted a campaign of persecution against me,” he said. “Only an appeal to the high court, which demanded a halt to the judicial torture of me and my family, obliged the police to conclude the investigation.”
