Probation and a fine of tens of thousands of shekels: the sentence imposed on former MK Hanin Zoabi

Zoabi was convicted of a forgery case designed to disguise the source of donations to Balad.

"The vigilance of the State Comptroller's employees prevented the success of the defendants' false presentation"

Yoav Itiel

16/01/2022

Sunday, 16 January 2022, 23:30 Updated: 23:59

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The president of the Magistrate's Court in Nazareth today (Sunday) sentenced former HG Hanin Zoabi to one year probation, for three years, and a fine of NIS 75,000, in the forgery case intended to disguise the source of donations to the party.

Earlier today, the arguments were heard For the punishment of Zoabi and other Balad activists, whom the president, Judge Doron Porat, convicted three months ago, according to their confession, in a case that was initially submitted to the court as part of a deal with the party and its senior officials.

"There is in the actions of the defendants because of a breach of public trust in the democratic process," the president of the court said.

More on Walla!

An indictment has been filed against Hanin Zoabi for forgery and fraud

To the full article

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Zoabi (Photo: Official Website, Balad)

The Balad members were represented by Adv. Amit Hadad, Adv. Namir Adelby, Adv. Khaled Titi and Adv. Noa Milstein. As part of the deal, the charges against the party were dropped and the charges against senior officials and activists remained. She has a previous criminal conviction for insulting a public servant from 2014. At today's court hearing, she told Judge Porat: "I am satisfied with what my attorney said."

The issue in question revolves around the party's conduct in 2013, a year in which two elections were held, in January for the 19th Knesset and in October for the local authorities, and in between the Balad party a budget deficit of about NIS 2.5 million. D. In March of that year, the party embarked on a fundraising campaign while publishing in the press the call for donations. During the ensuing months, the party deposited millions of shekels in its accounts and presented them as donations, but the suspicion was that some were received illegally, after Balad officials decided to make false representations to the authorities, according to which funds from unknown sources were presented as legitimate. .

"Only the vigilance of the State Comptroller's employees prevented the success of the false presentation that the defendants tried to make," prosecutors Adv. Omri Kupler and Adv. Ben Ami Cohen recalled. "Forgery and gross misconduct ignored the provisions of the Party Financing Law and the relevant regulations in order to deposit NIS 3.2 million in the party's bank accounts, which is clear today to everyone that their source is not in donations."

The investigation was conducted at the 433rd District Court. All the defendants were charged with forgery.

The senior officials, led by Haddad, were also accused of trying to obtain anything by deception.

Zoabi (Photo: Walla! NEWS system, Knesset Spokeswoman - Hadas Porush)

The gap between "serious affair" and relatively light sentences, the prosecution justified by "that all criminal activity in the affair including dealing with funds was done for the benefit of the party and not for the personal benefit of any of the defendants. None of them benefited financially", For the attempted fraud against the State Comptroller. "We took into account the lapse of time that acts were committed six to nine years ago," the attorneys said, adding that the defendants took responsibility before conducting evidence in the case and an indictment was not yet filed in the case and thus "saved immense judicial time accompanied by remorse." They also emphasized the personal fines "in very significant amounts, tens of thousands of NIS each and in total in the case close to one million shekels in fines."

The affair began to become clear in 2014 when the then State Comptroller, retired judge Yosef Shapira, informed the Balad party about failures in the financial report it submitted for the local election period, including the absence of a lawyer's affidavit on receipts, as required for cash donations in excess of NIS 500. The indictment filed

against the defendants in August last year, the party ordered one hundred receipts including a lawyer's affidavit at a printing house in Nazareth, and the donors, each according to his share, forged 1,300 receipts during 2016-2015 as follows: donors' names were recorded on receipts. Under the section "Donor Affidavit", the names of the donors were added as alleged donors plus a signature on "Donation Affidavit", in the section designated for the donation amount a sum of money was falsely written and in the date section a fictitious date was written in 2013, then the donation was allegedly given.

Court in Nazareth (Photo: Eli Ashkenazi)

In this case, the Economic Department of the State Attorney's Office prosecuted thirteen defendants, including senior party officials, Murad Haddad and Riyad Mahamid, whose sentence was postponed until the end of January; Journalist Awad Hussein, 64, a father of three and grandfather of a grandson, former party secretary general, who was sentenced to the same sentence as Zoabi, sentenced to one year to three years and fined NIS 75,000; Azaldin Badran, a member of the Central Committee Former party chairman former MK Jamal Zahalka and his sentence will also be handed down at the end of the month; former MK Hanin Zoabi, as well as five donors whose names appeared on receipts submitted to the state comptroller for donations in which Jamal Daka was also sentenced to death January, Hosni Sultani, Lulu Taha, 60, sentenced to 280 hours of public service, one year probation for three years and a fine of 25,000 shekels, Mochlis Burjal, Riyadh Abu Mokh, Munib Trevia, Sami Ali G. Raban,The 42-year-old media consultant was sentenced to 180 hours for public benefit, a suspended sentence of one to three years and a fine of NIS 25,000. And worked al-Halim Darawshe. A total of 36 people or more were questioned in the case, including others involved such as Amthans Shamas, the coordinator of the Nazareth branch in Balad and lawyers who served as the party's lawyers who signed the affidavit submitted to the State Comptroller for the donations. They were not prosecuted.

Attorneys Amit Hadad, Namir Adelby and Noa Milstein stated: "This is a case that began in 2016 with extensive and unnecessary arrests of dozens of people, and today it ends in the way and in the way it was supposed to end. The court will adopt the plea agreement. "

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