Lawyer says man accused in Ra’am vote-buying case was arrested even though warrantless search of his home found no cash

Saef Abu Raesh, one of three southern Bedouin men detained at dawn on election day over an alleged Ra’am vote-buying scheme, was taken into custody even though the warrantless police search of his home yielded no cash, says his attorney Ali Abu Laban.

Abu Laban makes the comments a day after the Beersheba Magistrate’s Court unconditionally ended Abu Raesh’s detention.

Police had claimed early on Tuesday, election day, that they arrested three southern Bedouin men who were found to possess envelopes containing tens of thousands of shekels in cash, allegedly with the aim of buying votes for the Arab-led party.

Speaking to Army Radio, Abu Laban says the total sum found in the two other suspects’ homes was NIS 12,000 ($3,830). The suspects have said the money was earmarked for charitable purposes.

The suspects’ homes were searched without a warrant, based on information that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s chief of staff Ido Norden had called in hours earlier to police top brass, according to Hebrew media.

Netanyahu in a video statement on that day said the allegations against what he described as the “three senior Ra’am money men” reflected an attempt “to steal the election from us.”

Contrary to Netanyahu’s claim, Abu Laban tells Army Radio that Abu Raesh, a doctor who runs a small clinic in Rahat, is not a Ra’am activist, but had instead advocated in the southern Bedouin town for people to go to the polls to change “the very difficult reality in Arab society.”

Abu Laban also says there is a “not good smell” to the court’s initial decision to extend his client’s remand until yesterday despite “no money and no envelopes” being found in Abu Raesh’s home.

“It’s not enough for police to act as though it’s political… the most important thing is that the court prevents it,” Abu Laban tells Army Radio.

Yesterday, the chair of the Central Elections Committee, Justice Noam Sohlberg, reiterated in a video message that last week’s national election was “conducted properly,” in a bid to quell claims of widespread voter fraud. Sohlberg appeared in the video alongside Shin Bet chief David Zini, CEC acting director-general Dean Livne, and Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara, with the four presenting a united front against the claims.