A Suspended Lawyer Convicted of Importing Cocaine Who Vanished: The Zaid Kanaan Case

A year facing an undercover agent

According to the facts agreed in the case, the undercover agent operated from August 2015 to September 2016 out of an apartment the police rented for him in Ashdod. Another person referred him to Kanaan, who in the words of the verdict was "at that time a practising lawyer, and a member of the Israel Bar Association".

In their first conversations, the two discussed the price of the drugs and ways to conceal them. Kanaan said he had connections in Jordan. On 4 October 2015 he travelled to Jordan and returned two days later, and informed the agent that an address had been found there to which the drugs could be sent.

At the end of October 2015, Kanaan asked the agent whether the drug could be imported concealed inside meat. In February 2016 the two also examined concealment inside paint. On that same day Kanaan took a bag containing 40,000 shekels from another person and handed it to the agent, saying it was "a first payment for the import of the drugs".

The planned trip to South America was postponed again and again. According to the verdict, Kanaan eventually admitted that he was not familiar with the field and was afraid that harm would come to him. In August 2016 the agent offered him a share in a larger deal in return for the 40,000 shekels already paid, and Kanaan agreed.

That deal was staged by the police. Two police officers posing as couriers bought six kilograms of cocaine in Colombia and brought them to Israel on 23 August 2016. Kanaan's share was set at two kilograms, and the police placed them in the Hyundai in the parking lot of the Ashdod railway station.

What exactly the court determined

The case, Criminal Case 70331-09-16, was heard before Judge Aharon Mishnayot at the Beersheba District Court. Kanaan initially pleaded not guilty, and ten evidentiary hearings were held. In June 2018, during the cross-examination of the agent, the parties reached a procedural agreement: they agreed on the facts, and remained divided only on their legal significance. This is therefore not an ordinary admission of guilt.

The defence argued that the agent was an "agent provocateur", meaning that the police had drawn a lawyer with no criminal record into an offence he would not have committed without them. It also argued selective enforcement. The court considered both arguments, and they did not lead to an acquittal.

On the question of possession of the drug, the judge ruled cautiously. He determined that Kanaan did not have actual physical control over the drug, because the bag was tied up in the boot. But he convicted him of constructive possession, meaning possession by virtue of partnership and knowledge. The import conviction is under the alternative of "facilitating the import" of the drug, under section 13 of the Dangerous Drugs Ordinance.

The disappearance, and the guarantors ordered to pay

In April 2018 Kanaan was released from detention to electronic monitoring. For him to be released, seven people signed guarantee bonds. Each of them undertook to pay the State Treasury up to 50,000 shekels if Kanaan breached the release conditions, and the first condition was to appear at every hearing. In April 2019 the nightly house arrest and the escort requirement were cancelled, but the other conditions, including the guarantees, remained in force.

In September 2019, two months after the conviction, his defence counsel announced that contact with him had been lost. On 1 December 2019 he did not appear for the sentencing arguments. The prosecution presented a police document according to which Kanaan had fled, and the assessment was that he had left the country on a forged passport. The court issued an arrest warrant to bring him to court and ordered the forfeiture of his deposit and bank guarantee, 70,000 shekels.

On 7 March 2021 it was the guarantors' turn. They argued that they did not know the guarantee was still in force after the conditions were cancelled, and that no one had informed them. The court rejected the argument. It determined that the guarantors knew about the easing of the conditions and knew that Kanaan had vanished. One of them said in his police statement that he had seen Kanaan on the day he fled, because he worked for him in a warehouse with the court's permission. None of them notified the police.

The court forfeited the guarantees in full: 50,000 shekels from each of the seven, 350,000 shekels in total, spread over ten instalments. On 25 April 2021 the Supreme Court rejected the appeal filed by the guarantors (Criminal Miscellaneous Application 2350/21). Together with the forfeiture against Kanaan himself, this amounts to forfeiture orders of 420,000 shekels. The documents do not show how much of the amount was actually collected.

Four days after the Supreme Court's decision, on 29 April 2021, the District Court suspended the proceedings against Kanaan at the prosecution's request, under section 94A of the Criminal Procedure Law. A suspension is not an acquittal. It freezes the proceeding, and the proceeding can be resumed.

A suspended lawyer since 2017

In the suspension report published by the Israel Bar Association's Haifa District, as of 24 September 2026, "Zaid Kanan" appears, licence number 31316, with the status "temporary suspension" from 20 July 2017 "until a final ruling in a criminal case". The spelling differs from that in the criminal case, but the name, the date of the suspension and its nature match the proceeding.

A suspended lawyer is not permitted to practise law during the suspension period. In this sense, a person who presents himself as a practising lawyer during a suspension is acting as an unlicensed lawyer. It is important to be precise: in this case no document was found according to which Kanaan represented clients during the suspension. The forfeiture decision mentions work in a warehouse with the court's permission, not work as a lawyer.

The acts in the indictment preceded the suspension. The conviction and the disappearance came after it. And as long as the criminal proceeding remains suspended and there is no final ruling, the suspension continues to stand on the list, now for more than nine years.

Finding a lawyer: how to check whether he is suspended

This case shows why it is worth checking before handing over a case, money or a power of attorney. Finding a lawyer and checking his status take a few minutes:

1. Lawyer search on the Israel Bar Association website. On the home page of the Bar's website (in Hebrew) there is a lawyer search by name. Write down the licence number, because names are sometimes written in different spellings, such as "Zaid Kanaan" and "Zaid Kanan".
2. The suspended lawyers page. The Bar publishes a dedicated page for suspended lawyers (in Hebrew). Check the name and the licence number there.
3. The districts' suspension reports. The Bar's districts publish current suspension reports, such as the Haifa District report on which this article relies. The report shows the type of suspension, its start date and until when it applies.
4. Legal proceedings. If a criminal or disciplinary proceeding is known, you can check public decisions in the Net HaMishpat system and in case law databases.
5. Distinguishing between situations. An indictment is not a conviction, a temporary suspension is not a revocation of the licence, and a suspension that has ended is not an active suspension. The absence of a search result is not proof that the licence is inactive.

Searching for lawyers by licence number is the safest way to distinguish between two people with a similar name. If someone presents himself as a lawyer and does not appear in the search, or appears as suspended, you can contact the Israel Bar Association before taking any step.

Timeline

What is still unknown

No verified information was found on Kanaan's whereabouts, on a re-arrest, on extradition or on a return to Israel. Leaving on a forged passport is a police assessment presented to the court, and not a conviction for a forgery offence. In the Net HaMishpat system the case is marked as closed, but the last decision found in it is the suspension of the proceedings, and no sentencing decision was found.

The article does not publish the names of the guarantors, who are private individuals, or the names of the other people involved who were not charged in this case. The original suspension decision of the ethics committee was not obtained, and the licence status was checked only against the published suspension report.