Deputy Religious Affairs Minister Rafael Pinhasi of the fervently Orthodox Shas party intends to fight an effort to deprive him of his parliamentary immunity so that he can be prosecuted for alleged misappropriation of election funds.
Attorney General Yosef Harish asked the Knesset this week to remove Pinhasi’s parliamentary immunity.
Attached to the official request was a charge sheet referring to alleged Shas misappropriations of state-supplied election funds during the 1988 parliamentary campaign and afterward.
There are no charges of personal wrongdoing in the charge sheet, a point that Pinhasi intends to rely on heavily in his fight against the move to arraign him.
Pinhasi is one of three Shas officials accused of wrongly appropriating funds.
Knesset member Yair Levy was convicted of malfeasance and has begun serving a five-year term for stealing monies from the party. Levy lost his parliamentary immunity in November 1991.
Interior Minister Arye Deri recently agreed to cooperate with the police investigation into his alleged wrongdoings, which has been in progress for the past two years.
The fight to remove Pinhasi’s immunity will take place first in the House Committee of the Knesset, which must make a recommendation to the plenary. The full Knesset must vote on the measure.
Political observers say the case is by no means open and shut. The alleged crimes are political rather than personal, and, Pinhasi points out, Shas has paid fines for its wrongdoings, which were originally exposed by the state comptroller.
Several members of Knesset may feel Shas is being victimized by the legal establishment and that the charges against Pinhasi are not substantiated.
Pinhasi was communication minister when the investigation began.
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