Mazuz to indict Balad MK over illegal Syria visit

Attorney General Menachem Mazuz plans to indict MK Said Naffaa (Balad) for making an illegal trip to Syria last year, unless a hearing with the MK's lawyers convinces him otherwise, Mazuz informed Naffaa yesterday.

However, he has decided to close similar cases against MK Ahmed Tibi (United Arab List), who traveled illegally to Lebanon in 2005, and MKs Jamal Zahalka and Wasal Taha (Balad), who made unauthorized trips to Syria and Lebanon in 2006.

Naffaa is being indicted because, in addition to traveling illegally to Syria, he allegedly committed two other offenses while there. First, he met with two senior officials of terrorist organizations: Khaled Meshal, the head of Hamas' political bureau, and Talal Naji, deputy secretary-general of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. For this, he will be charged with contact with a foreign agent.

Second, he helped some 300 other Israelis make illegal trips to Syria by securing Syrian entry visas for them.

The other three MKs, in contrast, are suspected of nothing but violating the law against traveling to an enemy state without governmental permission. Thus Mazuz decided to make do with referring their cases to the Knesset Ethics Committee.

The fact that their visits were not as recent as Naffaa's was also a mitigating circumstance, Mazuz said.

In addition, he noted, the Knesset passed a law in July stating that anyone who travels to an enemy state without permission will henceforth be viewed as expressing de facto support for armed struggle against Israel, and will thus be ineligible to run for Knesset. That creates a significant new deterrent against such trips, Mazuz said, thereby making the deterrent of criminal prosecution less necessary.