Global Policy Forum

By Greg Myre

The Israeli police questioned Prime Minister Ariel Sharon for seven hours on Thursday in connection with two investigations into possible cases of political corruption involving Mr. Sharon and his two sons. Mr. Sharon has denied any wrongdoing and has promised to cooperate with investigators. The questioning at Mr. Sharon's official residence in Jerusalem further contributed to an already rough week for the prime minister. His Likud Party lost ground on Tuesday in nationwide municipal elections, and on Wednesday the Israeli Army chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Moshe Yaalon, criticized the government's tough policies in dealing with the three-year-old Palestinian uprising.

Still, Mr. Sharon's coalition government appears stable, and the session with the police is part of a long-running inquiry that has not resulted in any criminal charges. Police inquiries are frequent in Israeli politics. Mr. Sharon's predecessors as prime minister, Ehud Barak and Benjamin Netanyahu, also faced corruption inquiries that were ultimately dropped. The questioning by the National Fraud Squad and the International Investigations Department focused on the relationship that Mr. Sharon and his younger son, Gilad, had with a wealthy Israeli businessman, David Appel, the police said.

Mr. Appel is said to have paid Gilad Sharon hundreds of thousands of dollars to work as a consultant in developing a tourism project in the Greek Islands in the late 1990's, the Israeli media has reported. The police are trying to determine whether Mr. Appel's real aim was to gain influence with Mr. Sharon, the foreign minister at the time, and have him lobby the Greek government to approve the tourism project, the media reports have said. Gilad Sharon has refused to hand over documents in the so-called Greek island affair, citing his right to remain silent and avoid self-incrimination. A court ruled last month that he was not required to give the documents to the police. Mr. Sharon, Gilad and the prime minister's other son, Omri, are also the subjects of a campaign finance investigation.

In that case, Mr. Sharon was ordered to reimburse campaign contributions of nearly $1 million that were improperly raised from overseas donors in 1999, when he was chosen as leader of the Likud Party. Mr. Sharon and his sons, Gilad and Omri, attempted to pay back the money with a loan, using Mr. Sharon's leased ranch in the southern Negev Desert as collateral. But when the loan was turned down, a South African businessman, Cyril Kern, transferred $1.5 million to Mr. Sharon's sons. Mr. Kern has described the money as a personal gift, not a political donation.

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