Leading Australian Jew pleads guilty to perjury

November 3, 2008

A former Australian federal judge and high-profile Jewish community member pleaded guilty to perjury.

Marcus Einfeld, a former executive member of the New South Wales Jewish Board of Deputies, councilor of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry and patron of the Australian Association of Jewish Holocaust Survivors and Descendants, faces a maximum jail term of 10 years for making a false statement under oath after pleading guilty on Oct. 31. He also faces 14 years for intending to pervert the course of justice.

Einfeld had testified in court that others, including an Australian woman in America whom he knew was already dead, were driving his car on four occasions when it was booked for traffic offenses between 1999 and 2006. Einfeld was trying to avoid paying a $50 traffic fine. He will be sentenced Feb. 25.

Einfeld, 69, is the son of the late Sydney Einfeld, a Labor Party member of parliament and New South Wales government minister, as well as the president of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry.

A former president of the Human Rights and Equal Opportunities Commission, Marcus Einfeld was a champion of the left and was named an Australian Living Treasure by the National Trust of Australia in 1997. He was awarded an Order of Australia in 1998 for his promotion of human rights.

Einfeld was involved in the Rule of Law project in the Palestinian territories following the Oslo Accords. The project began to train Palestinian judges and lawyers to help establish Palestinian law.

In 2002 he compared the treatment of asylum seekers in detention centers in Australia to the Nazis, saying the “thuggery” of the guards in Australia was “not much different” to the treatment meted out by SS guards.

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