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Israeli prosecutor: Indict Sharon
(Agencies)
Updated: 2004-03-29 08:42 Israel's chief prosecutor on Sunday officially
recommended bringing charges against Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in a
corruption scandal that could drive him from office and derail his Gaza
Strip withdrawal plan.
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| Israeli Prime Minister Ariel
Sharon pauses prior to the weekly cabinet meeting in his Jerusalem
office Sunday March 28, 2004. [AP] | The Justice
Ministry said State Attorney Edna Arbel had submitted a draft indictment to
Attorney General Menachem Mazuz, who would have the final say on whether to put
the 76-year-old prime minister on trial for alleged bribe-taking.
A Justice Ministry source estimated it could take Mazuz, a career civil
servant widely regarded as without any political agenda, up to two months to
decide whether to charge Sharon.
The developments plunged Sharon deeper into trouble two weeks before a visit
to Washington, where he hopes to win U.S. President Bush's backing for his plan
to unilaterally evacuate Jewish settlements in Gaza and some in the West Bank.
It cast a cloud of suspicion over Sharon which may hamper his efforts to
obtain cabinet backing for his Gaza pullout plan.
Sharon's aides declined to comment on the matter.
But one of his confidants told the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper the central
issue was "whether there is sufficient evidence which justifies throwing the
country into a whirlpool."
The case centers on payments of hundreds of thousands of dollars that an
Israeli land developer and Likud stalwart made to Sharon's son Gilad, whom he
hired in the late 1990s as an adviser on a never-completed project to build a
Greek resort.
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| Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon arrives
at the weekly cabinet meeting at his Jerusalem office March 28,
2004. [Reuters] | Suspicions focus on
whether Sharon, foreign minister at the time, tried to help win Greek government
approval for the enterprise, promoted by Likud kingmaker David Appel, now on
trial on related bribery charges. Sharon denies any wrongdoing.
ATTORNEY-GENERAL QUOTED AS SAYING CASE IS "BORDERLINE"
Legal experts quoted by television networks said the case against Sharon
would have to be iron-clad for Mazuz to indict.
Channel Two television quoted Mazuz as saying the case was "borderline" and
"problematic." It also quoted Yohanan Danino, the lead police investigator in
the probe against Sharon, as saying: "There are lots of dark (questionable)
spots in this case but they do not ... tie Sharon in a direct and logical line
to receiving bribes."
Some cabinet ministers said Sharon should quit if Mazuz decided to indict
him. Others said he should suspend himself.
Arbel's recommendation gave heart to one cabinet minister from a pro-settler
party that has threatened to quit Sharon's government if he goes ahead with the
Gaza pullout plan.
"I admire the courage of Edna Arbel...I admire this sort of judicial
caliber," Tourism Minister Benny Elon told Army radio.
A government source said that under Israeli law Sharon would not have to
resign until exhausting his final court appeal against any conviction. But
recent opinion polls have shown he would be under huge public pressure to quit
if charged.
In legal limbo, Sharon will press Bush on April 14 to back his disengagement
plan.
Sharon has proposed to pull hard-to-defend Israeli settlers and troops out of
the Gaza Strip as part of a plan to impose a separation on the Palestinians on
Israel's terms if the moribund "road map" to a negotiated peace, promoted by
Washington, fails.
The Palestinians say that in reality, Sharon aims to annex large Jewish
settlement blocs in the occupied West Bank.
Sharon has been pushed from office before. As defense chief during Israel's
1982 invasion of Lebanon, he quit after an inquiry found him indirectly
responsible for the massacre by a pro-Israeli Lebanese group of hundreds of
Palestinian refugees.
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