Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper has launched an incitement campaign against Arab Knesset member Abdul-Hakim Haj Yahya, from the Joint List, after he attended last week a ceremony held to celebrate the release of a Palestinian prisoner.

The newspaper blamed MK Haj Yahya for celebrating the release of former prisoner Mohammed Khalaf, a carpenter in the Arab local council of Jatt in the Triangle area, claiming he visited someone convicted of a terror action.

In 2005, Khalaf was sentenced to 12 years in prison and was released last week. He was jailed on allegations of assisting a Hamas cell to make explosive devices and carry out terror attacks.

“Someone who was convicted of an offense, after he finished serving his time, you can’t keep him locked up,” Haj Yahya told Yedioth Ahronoth.

“I do not even know what he did and what he was in prison for, and I will not be another judge to punish him after he had paid his debt to society,” he added.