From the transcripts of the investigation by the chairman of Balad, MK Sami Abu Shahada, at the police, it becomes clear that the party provided fake receipts as if they had hired 541 staffs – 15 times the actual number. Allegedly, senior officials of Balad received checks and cashed them, but never Transfer the funds to their destination. Balad claims: “political persecution”
“I am informing you that you are suspected of forgery under aggravating circumstances, obtaining something fraudulently under aggravating circumstances, using a forged document and offenses under the Money Laundering Prohibition Law,” this is how investigator Eyal Tal opened his investigation of Sami Abu Shahada, the chairman of Balad, in August 2017.
Abu Shahada’s investigation at the national fraud investigation unit in Lahab 433 was conducted as part of the investigation into the corruption case in the Balad party, in which the police investigated suspicions of forgery and money laundering by party officials in the 2013 and 2015 election campaigns.
After the Balad party submitted to the state auditor the financial report for its activities in the 2015 elections, the auditor suspected that the party had submitted false reports regarding millions of shekels. Among other things, regarding the rental of headquarters and fuel expenses.
While the Balad party normally has 34 headquarters, during the election period it reported that it hired 541 headquarters, more headquarters than the Likud party, the largest in the Knesset, in the amount of approximately NIS 1.4 million.
The whistleblower of corruption in the Balad party, Erez Ofir from the state comptroller’s office, wrote that “a reasonable suspicion arises that these are fictitious contracts, and in practice it was not about renting headquarters but payments for other activities, if at all.”
The police investigators summoned dozens of witnesses, who according to the contracts submitted by Balad to the State Comptroller rented hundreds of headquarters to the party.
According to the investigation protocols, most of the “lessors” were surprised by the existence of the contract with them and told the investigators that they had never leased a property to BLD, that their signatures were forged and some of them had not even received payment – even though the party issued checks with the fictitious lessors listed as beneficiaries.
More than 20 contracts were “signed” with minors, and in many places the distribution of the party headquarters was large, crowded and illogical.
For example, 7 staffs were rented in Umm al-Fahm, 2 staffs were rented in the small Beit Tzafa neighborhood in Jerusalem, 3 staffs in Tel Sheba and Kasipah in each of the places. According to the police, 90% of the staffs did not exist at all but were fictitious.
According to the suspicion, this was the way to evade tax and inflate expenses through the disappearance of hundreds of thousands of shekels.
Things came to a head when the party reported that on election day alone, spending on fuel amounted to NIS 634,000. This is what Netael Bandel reports in Israel Hayom.
The police investigators were amazed: “500,000 shekels is about 90,000 liters. In a rough estimate, at 10 kilometers per liter, it comes out to 900,000 kilometers”, it’s as if they traveled to the moon and back.
“You want to tell me that Balad’s cars drove almost a million kilometers in one day?” one of the investigators in the Balad case investigation slammed.
Those who were responsible for the system of renting the staffs and fuel expenses are the district managers. One of them, the director of the central district, is Sami Abu Shahada, currently MK and chairman of the Balad.
Abu Shahada reported that on election day he traveled with Jaffa activists in the amount of NIS 9,750, that is, about 14,000 kilometers – about 30 trips from Eilat to Kiryat Shmona.
Lila Kabob, the owner of a money exchange business in Jaffa that operates inside a jewelry store, told the investigators: “Sami Abu Shahada brought me checks for Fritah. I know he is connected to politics. He gave me the checks and I gave them cash in exchange for a certain commission.”
The case against Abu Shahada is closed. In August 2021, according to their confession, as part of a plea deal, 13 senior officials of the Bald were convicted of forgery and fraud.
At the end of this coming week, “Israel Today” will publish for the first time what happened in the interrogation rooms of the senior officials of Balad.
The reaction of MK Sami Abu Shahada, Chairman of the Board: “The case was closed for a simple reason – MK Sami Abu Shahada was not involved in any violation of the law. This is a biased and biased investigation. This is a desperate attempt before the elections to bring back an affair whose entire purpose is to pursue Balad politically”.
“Every time Balad returns to the public discourse, by proposing a democratic political idea of a state to all its citizens that poses a challenge – the Israeli and Zionist political establishment cannot accommodate. The establishment’s attempt to persecute Balad politically in a case related to election financing has lasted for more than seven years.”