A high-profile member of the Australian Jewish community must stand trial on perjury charges.
On Thursday, former Federal Court of Australia Judge Marcus Einfeld – a former executive member of the New South Wales Jewish Board of Deputies, councilor of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry and patron of the Australian Association of Jewish Holocaust Survivors and Descendants – was ordered to face 13 charges of perjury, traffic offenses and perverting the course of justice.
Allegedy he was trying to avoid paying traffic penalties.
Einfeld allegedly swore under oath that other people, including a woman who he knew was already dead, were driving his car on four occasions when it was booked for traffic offenses between 1999 and 2006.
The maximum penalty is a 14-year jail term.
Einfeld, 69, is the son of the late Sydney Einfeld, once a Labor Party member of parliament, government minister and president of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry.
A former president of the Human Rights and Equal Opportunities Commission, Marcus Einfeld was a champion of the left and was named an Australian Living Treasure by the National Trust of Australia. He was awarded an Order of Australia in 1998 for his promotion of human rights.
Einfeld also was involved in the Rule of Law project following the Oslo Accords designed to train Palestinian judges and lawyers to help establish Palestinian law.
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