Arcadi Gaydamak

Biography

Arcadi Gaydamak was born in 1952 in Moscow, the capital of the USSR. At the age of 20, Gaydamak was one of the first Jews to emigrate to Israel from Leonid Brezhnev's Soviet Union and receive Israeli citizenship. He lived on Kibbutz Beit HaShita, and studied Hebrew at an ulpan. He said he originally intended to serve in the Israeli Army, but ended up moving to France, where he opened a translation bureau. In 1982, Gaydamak Translations opened a branch in Canada. During that period he commenced international business, in import and export. After the collapse of the USSR, he built up ties in Russia and Kazakhstan and formed various business organizations across Europe.

Gaydamak won two citations from the French government: Chevalier de l'Ordre National du Mérite and the Ordre du Mérite agricole for helping to rescue two captured French pilots in the War in Bosnia in the 1990s, as well as two French intelligence officers captured by rebel factions in the Caucasus. Because these operations were secret, the citations spoke of his contribution to agriculture. Former French interior minister Charles Pasqua confirmed this, saying that then-president Jacques Chirac had personally authorized the citations.

Gaydamak owns a home in Caesarea, is married to Irene Tzirolnicova and is a father of three children. He speaks Russian, French and English. He also speaks Portuguese and Hebrew on a basic level.

In December 2008 it was reported that Gaydamak left Israel and moved to Moscow. In February 2009 it was reported that he seeks to regain the Russian citizenship he lost when he emigrated to Israel.

Gaydamack was granted honorary Angolan citizenship and holds French, Canadian and Israeli passports.

Angola affair

In October 2009, Gaydamak and French magnate Pierre Falcone were convicted by a French court of organizing arms trafficking in Angola during the civil war in 1993–1998 in the amount of 790 million dollars, in violation of the Lusaka Protocol. He was sentenced in absentia to six years in prison. His conviction on the arms dealing charges was overturned by the Court of Appeal in Paris on 29 April 2011, condemning him only for his 1994 tax declaration.

Politics

In February 2007, seeing the social evolutions problems in Israel, Gaydamak founded a party devoted to socio-economic issues, which he named Social Justice. Although the organization was established as a social movement, he said it could become a political party if the circumstances warranted it. In late 2007, the party contemplated taking part in the 2008 municipal elections.

Gaydamak ran for mayor of Jerusalem in November 2008, but his party won no seats on the city council. During the campaign, Gaydamak courted the East Jerusalem Palestinian vote. Gaydamak approached the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Muhammad Ahmad Hussein, Palestinian political figures and media, and came away with as close to an endorsement as one could hope for.

Sport clubs and media ownership

In July 2005, Gaydamak became sponsor of the Hapoel Jerusalem basketball team. The following month he donated $400,000 to the Israeli Arab Bnei Sakhnin football club. On the same day Gaydamak announced the purchase of 55% of the ownership of Beitar Jerusalem, and two days later he announced the acquisition of full ownership. Gaydamak is the patron of several Jewish charities and president of the Congress of Jewish Religious Communities and Organizations of Russia (KEROOR), Russia's oldest Jewish umbrella group. In the summer of 2008, Arcadi claimed his son Alexandre was owner of Portsmouth F.C. and it was confirmed by the Premier League.

In March 2006 he announced his offer to buy the French newspaper France Soir via his company Moscow News. He had purchased the Russian Moskovskie Novosti newspaper in 2004, fired some senior journalists, and changed the paper's mandate to a firmly pro-government one, appointing a pro-Putin journalist as editor in chief.

In January 2006, Portsmouth Football Club were sold to his son, Arcadi Gaydamak by Milan Mandarić. Arcadi later sold the club to Ali al-Faraj in 2009.

In June 2007, Gaydamak negotiated a deal to buy the non-kosher supermarket chain Tiv Taam. According to newspaper reports, he was planning to close the stores on Shabbat and halt the sale of pork products. However, a few days later the deal fell through, resulting in a lawsuit.

In July 2009, Gaydamak announced his decision to give up the ownership of Beitar Jerusalem in favor of Itzik Kornfein and Guma Aguiar. Kornfein would handle buying and selling players, while Aguair would engage in financing.

Philanthropy and community service

Gaydamak has donated to many Israeli organizations, including Magen David Adom and Hatzolah. He also donated $10 million to the Jewish Agency for Israel

During the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict Gaydamak constructed a tent-village on the beach of Nitzanim, hosting thousands of families who fled the rocket-ridden North and had no place to go. Gaydamak's contributions totaled $15 million (about $500,000 a day). In November 2006, he funded a one-week-long vacation in Eilat for hundreds of Sderot residents who have experienced rocket attacks from Gaza.

Relationship with attorney Israel Shalev

According to IzRus, an Israely portal:

It became known that Israel Shalev, a lawyer who represented Arkadi Gaydamak for many years, refused to represent him in the court of law against an israeli business consultant Mikhail Etlin. According to various sources, the reason for the refusal were “major and bitter disagreements” between the attorney and his client. It is to be noted that Shalev also refused to lead Gaydamak’s other court cases.

Unfortunately Shalev was unavailable for a commentary on the situation. As IzRus has already reported, business consultant Mikhail Etlin has previously filed two lawsuits against Arcadi Gaydamak. The first one, in October of 2015, accused Gaydamak of various manipulations during the sale of the Bikur Holim hospital. Etlin was promised a generous salary and 1.5% of the hospital’s sale price. Yet Gaydamak failed to even inform Etlin about the sale of the hospital. The lawsuit is for 1 million US Dollars.

The second lawsuit is for 9 million US Dollars and was filed in December of 2016. It describes Etlin’s participation in the swiss court, between Gaydamak and his one-time partner Nahum Galmor. Etlin was again promised 1.5% of the compensation total, but he did not receive those.

During the swiss trial, Gaydamak stated that Galmor was his trusted figure in his acquisition of 20% of stock shares of Thermphos, a company operating in phosphate recycling in Kazakhstan. Later, he allegedly appropriated the money. Gaydamak’s lawsuit, which topped 1 billion US Dollars, ended with a compromise, under which Galmor was obliged to pay 205 million US Dollars.

The second case was the reason was the disagreements between Gaydamak and Shalev.

According to the second lawsuit, Etlin entered into a contract with Gaydamak under which they were to co-ordinate their actions in the lawsuit against Galmor in 2012. As is it said in the lawsuit, Etlin was not only a witness, but also acted

as a paid consultant. Etlin’s vested interest in the outcome of the case was not revealed to the Swiss court of law. According to the lawsuit, Etlin was tasked, by Gaydamak and his lawyers, to collect witness statements, against Galmor, from the top-management of Thermphos. At the end of 2013, the court sided with Gaydamak’s, however Etlin stated that he continued working on the topic up until 2015.

It appeared that many witnesses has similar “contracts” with Gaydamak, and were supposed to receive financial rewards upon the completion of the case. Etlin, in his lawsuit, listed a set of very famous figures, such as lawyers representing the interests of one of the prime-ministers and russian oligarchs, an ex-director of one of the intelligence services and its high-ranking employee. All in all, Etlin stated that Gaydamak broke the swiss law, by providing biased witnesses.

In Gaydamak’s letter to the Tel-Aviv district court, filed on his behalf by Galmor in May of 2017, it is said that no agreement was signed with Mikhail Etlin. Moreover, allegedly, the complainant is not aware of all the details of the relations between Gaydamak and Galmor.