Prosecutors recommend charging Sharon

11.00am

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 says.

The report said on Saturday that State Attorney Edna Arbel plans 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.

Channel 2 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.

A spokesman for the Justice Ministry, which represents both the state attorney and the attorney general, declined to comment on the report. Sharon's office also had no comment.

But Sharon's attorney, Avigdor Klagsbald, was quoted by the website of Israel's Yedioth Ahronot newspaper as saying the chief prosecutor's draft a "media manipulation attempt."

"The state is conducting a system of unfair leaks against the prime minister in an attempt to put pressure on public opinion and the opinion of the attorney general, who is the sole authority to decide if to submit an indictment," the website quoted him as saying.

Israel Radio quoted sources in the prime minister's office as saying Sharon would only comment on the case when Mazuz finally decided about the indictment.

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 report said.


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, denying them the viable state they seek.

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.

COALITION MEMBERS CALL FOR SHARON'S SUSPENSION

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, Israeli media reported after the Channel 2 report.

Sharon has said he has no intention of resigning over the allegations. In 1993, Israel's high court ordered Aryeh Deri, leader of the ultra-Orthodox Shas party, to resign from the cabinet over corruption charges. He was sent to prison in 1999.

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

"Sharon must suspend himself -- it is inconceivable for a prime minister to have an indictment against him," said Menachem Klein, a political analyst at Israeli's Bar Ilan University.

Sharon has faced a public backlash over the past months over allegations of corruption and misconduct regarding multiple scandals. Israeli police are currently 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 $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.

- REUTERS