The Knesset voted 58-41 on a secret ballot Wednesday to strip Deputy Religious Affairs Minister Raphael Pinhasi of his parliamentary immunity so that he can face charges of misappropriating of party funds.
The move threatens to strain relations between the Labor Party and Pinhasi’s Shas party, potentially triggering a political crisis in the governing coalition.
The Knesset action to lift Pinhasi’s immunity had been sought by Attorney General Yosef Harish.
Pinhasi’s supporters said his only hope of avoiding indictment was for the country’s High Court of Justice to disqualify the Knesset vote, in which eight members abstained.
The accusations leveled at Pinhasi concern alleged misappropriation of state-supplied election funds by Shas during the 1988 parliamentary campaign and afterward.
Pinhasi is one of three Shas officials accused of wrongly appropriating government funds.
Former Knesset member Yair Levy has begun serving a five-year prison sentence for stealing monies from the party. Levy lost his parliamentary immunity in November 1991.
And Interior Minister Arye Deri broke his silence in early February and agreed to cooperate with the police investigation into his alleged wrongdoings, a probe that has been in progress for the past two years.
Pinhasi’s lawyer, Dan Avi-Yitzhak, has charged that the Knesset action is a political one, motivated by general anti-Shas sentiment and a media campaign directed against Pinhasi.
Shas has retaliated against the Labor Party for failing to shield Pinhasi from prosecution by withholding its endorsement of Labor’s candidate for president candidate, Ezer Weizman.
Shas officials have also made threatening noises about quitting the coalition.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
