CBNNews.com - JERUSALEM, Israel - Member of Knesset (MK) Tzachi Hanegbi is on trial in Jerusalem's Magistrate Court for fraud, breach of trust, election bribery, false testimony and lying under oath.

Hanegbi, who helped negotiate an arrangement with Labor Tuesday evening on behalf of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's Kadima party to keep the current government in power, gave his first testimony Sunday. He is expected to testify two more times this week.

The indictment states that Hanegbi made dozens of political appointments between 2001 and 2003.

"No one ever told me this practice was improper," Tzanegbi told the court. "Had they told me, I would have stopped immediately," he said.

"Never for a moment did I think I was disrupting the ministry's screening process and that was never as much as hinted to me," he said.

Source: The Jerusalem Post