Indictment drafted against Sharon in corruption scandal

JERUSALEM - Israel's chief prosecutor has drafted an indictment against Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in a long-running corruption scandal that could drive him from office.

Israel's Channel 2 television said State Attorney Edna Arbel planned to submit the charge sheet within days to Attorney-General Menachem Mazuz, who will make the final decision on whether to put the 76-year-old leader on trial.

The station said it could take Mazuz months to decide whether to accept Arbel's recommendations, adding to a cloud of political uncertainty that has enveloped Sharon.

Arbel's draft concluded there were sufficient grounds to charge Sharon with bribery in connection with a real estate deal involving his son Gilad and land developer David Appel, a stalwart of the Prime Minister's right-wing Likud Party.

The latest development catches Sharon during a stormy time while he tries to win support from the United States and from his own Cabinet for his plan unilaterally to evacuate Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip and some in the West Bank.

There was no immediate indication whether the reported draft indictment would delay Sharon's planned trip to Washington on April 14 to meet US President George W. Bush regarding his disengagement plan.

Palestinians fear an Israeli pullout from the Gaza Strip would mask an attempt by Sharon to annex settlement blocs in the West Bank.

Prosecutors allege Appel hired Gilad Sharon in 1999 and paid him large sums to persuade his father, then foreign minister, to promote real estate deals including a Greek island resort that was never built.

Sharon has in the past denied any wrongdoing. Appel, who was charged in January with trying to bribe Sharon in the 1990s, also denies the allegations against him. Appel's indictment did not cite any evidence Sharon knowingly accepted money to grant political favours.

Some ministers from the centrist Shinui Party, his largest coalition partner, have called on Sharon to suspend himself if the Attorney-General decides to indict him.

Sharon has said he has no intention of resigning over the allegations. In 1993, the High Court ordered Arye Deri, leader of the ultra-Orthodox Shas Party, to quit the Cabinet over corruption charges. He was jailed in 1999.

Legal experts are divided over whether under law Sharon would be forced to resign if indicted.

Sharon has faced a public backlash over the past months over allegations of corruption and misconduct regarding multiple scandals. Israeli police are conducting investigations of the cases and Sharon denies involvement in all of them.

One case alleges that Sharon's sons Gilad and Omri used a US$1.5 million ($2.34 million) loan from a South African businessman as collateral to repay illicit contributions to Sharon's campaign.

Sharon's scandals

* Money for votes

In December 2002 Israeli fraud police began investigating allegations that members of Likud's central committee demanded money for votes in a primary ballot to select MPs before the January 2003 general election. Sharon dismissed Naomi Blumenthal, a deputy Cabinet minister, for involvement in the scandal.

* "Sharongate"

In January 2003, police began investigating claims of funding irregularities in Sharon's 1999 campaign for leadership of Likud involving Sharon and his two sons, Gilad and Omri.

Police believe the two used a US$1.5 million loan from a South African businessman as collateral to repay alleged illicit contributions to Sharon's campaign. Foreign funding of political campaigns is illegal in Israel.

Sharon denies the allegations and says his sons alone handled the primary funds. In December 2003 Gilad, under orders from the Supreme Court, began handing over his files to investigators.

* Greek Island

On January 21, 2004, prosecutors charged David Appel, a prominent property developer and Likud supporter, with trying to bribe Sharon when he was Foreign Minister in the late 1990s. Appel insists he is innocent.

Prosecutors said Appel hired Gilad Sharon in 1999 as a consultant for the purchase of a Greek resort island and paid him large sums intended to persuade his father to help him promote the deal. It never went through.

Appel was charged with paying more than US$2.6 million in a bid to bribe Sharon and Vice-Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, then Mayor of Jerusalem, to help him push through the island deal and a bid on Government-controlled land in central Israel.

The indictment did not cite any evidence that Sharon knowingly accepted money for political favours.

* Prisoner swap

Israel's Maariv newspaper reported this month that Sharon once had a business relationship with the father-in-law of Elhanan Tannenbaum, an Israeli businessman freed by Hizbollah on January 29 in exchange for 400 Arab prisoners.

The report suggested those links influenced Sharon's decision to push for the numerically lopsided swap. Tannenbaum is under investigation for possible illegal business dealings at the time he was abducted in 2000.

- REUTERS