Martin Schlaff

Martin Schlaff is an influential Austrian billionaire who has been active on the Israeli political scene. He is suspected by the Israeli police of bribing rightwing politicians including Ariel Sharon and Avigdor Lieberman.

Friends in High Places

The extent of his connections are highlighted by the fact that he flew in former Isareli cabinet minister Aryeh Deri to oversee the circumcision of his newborn son Haim Yudel. Also in attendance were Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, Ariel Sharon’s personal physician, Boleslav Goldman, and the Schlaff family's New York business partner Shlomo Obstfeld who according to Haaretz jumped from a 19th-floor apartment in Manhattan to his death under mysterious circumstances only a few weeks later. Gidi Weitz of Haaretz writes:

According to his friends, the doors of a variety of heads of state, mainly in Europe but also in the Arab world, open before Schlaff. He is known to be in contact, for example, with leading figures in the Egyptian and Jordanian regimes, as well as with Syrian President Bashar Assad and Libyan leader Muammar Gadhafi.

Funding Israel's Rightwing

Schlaff's offices are located at No. 1 Trattnerhof in Vienna, an address which also houses Robert Placzek Holding AG, which deals in wood, pulp and paper. According to Weitz,

In August 2001, Robert Placzek Holding transferred $650,000 to a Cypriot company called Trasimeno Trading Ltd., which was controlled − Israeli police suspect − by Lieberman, who at the time was serving as national infrastructure minister in Ariel Sharon’s government. A few months ago police investigators arrived in Vienna to gather testimony concerning the affair.

A short distance from Schlaff's offices at No. 17 Wiedner Hauptstrasse, writes Weitz

one can find the offices of two companies, both of them with connections to Israel, in cases where Schlaff was also allegedly involved. One of them, Jurimex, was instrumental in arranging the guarantee of an Austrian bank for credit of $1 million for the account of Yisrael Beiteinu, Lieberman’s party, in February 2002. The other is Getex, an agricultural trading company with operations in Eastern Europe. Toward the end of 2002, about $3 million of that company’s money ended up in a bank account belonging to Gilad and Omri Sharon in Israel.

About two months ago, Haaretz reported that investigators from the Israel Police national fraud squad recommended indicting Schlaff on suspicion of having bribed Ariel Sharon by means of his sons. Nahum Levy − former deputy fraud squad commander and head of the investigative team in the affair, now on retirement leave from the police − has told Haaretz, “This is one of the gravest corruption affairs investigated by the fraud squad. It involved transfers of millions of dollars to the Sharon family. This was a particularly complex investigation because in it, an attempt was made to blur the source of the money via transfers from different countries of the world.” The police recommendation is now in the hands of the State Prosecutor’s Office, which will determine whether an indictment can be made.

Investigation had long stalled, one Austrian politican told Wietz, 'because both the large Austrian parties, the Social Democrats and the conservative People’s Party, have an interest in protecting him.' But in 2006 the Austrians agree to comply with the Israeli investigation. As a result, Schlaff has been reportedly 'tense and nervous'.

The man who used to fly in his well-equipped private jet among the capitals of the world is apparently very afraid of being tarnished with the label “wanted man.”

Contact

• Address: No 1. Trattnerhof, Vienna.

Resources

External Resources

• Special Report:The Schlaff Saga, Haaretz, 10 September 2010
• Gideon Levy, Time for disengagement, Haaretz, 12 September 2010