Israel convicts conmen who defrauded Greek church

Jerusalem, Israel - A Jerusalem court on Monday convicted two conmen of larceny, including a 20 million dollar property fraud from the Greek patriarch, the state of Israel and the Jewish National Fund.

Estate agents Yaakov Rabinowicz and David Morgenstein were found guilty of making fraudulent land purchases from the Greek patriarch in 2000 by posing as agents for Israel and the JNF, the para-governmental organ that buys land.

They were able to lease hundreds of strategically placed acres around Jerusalem and thousands more in Beit Shemesh, which lies between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, and which are still under a state lease for several dozen years.

The prosecution said the Israelis even forged the signature of then Patriarch Diodoros I on the contracts.

Diodoros's sucessor, Irineos I, lost his job over a multi-million dollar land sale in which ideologically motivated Jewish businessmen acquired church land in a predominantly Palestinian area of the Old City in east Jerusalem.

Rabinowicz and Morgenstein are to be sentenced at a later date.