Palestinian-Israeli MK rejects forgery, fraud claims by Israel court

An indictment was filed against a former Palestinian member of the Knesset (MK) Haneen Zoabi on Wednesday who was accused in April by an Israeli court of fraud and forgery.

The indictment included 12 other members of the Balad Party, a Palestinian-dominated leftist political party in Israel.

Zoabi and the other defendants could face prison sentences, community service, or fines if found guilty.

The investigations into alleged fraud are in connection to documents submitted by the Balad Party to the Israeli government regarding election campaigns in 2013.

Suspects in the case were accused of fraudulently trying to obtain 3.2 million Israeli shekels for their election campaigns without claiming the funds.

The party has previously labelled the charges as "political persecution".

In a post on her Facebook page on Tuesday, Zoabi accused the public prosecutor of attempting to turn the matter into a criminal case and rejected the claims.

"The Israel Prosecution Office today, after 5 years, submitted an indictment against me and 12 comrades from the gathering, and chose to transfer an administrative file related to violations within the election financing law… to a criminal file, bearing in mind that the body authorised to examine the parties' finances is the state's comptroller, not the police and the public prosecutor's office," she wrote.

The former MK said her name being brought into the issue was a reflection of the Israeli authority's "bankruptcy".

"Even after retiring from my parliamentary work, the Israeli media continued to use my name with the aim of incitement and intimidation," she wrote.