PM bribery probe ‘will not be ready before election’

The police bribery investigation into suspicions that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’ family received $3 million from an Austrian businessman and casino magnate will not be completed until after the March 28 elections, Army Radio reported Wednesday quoting unnamed police officials. A senior police source said late Tuesday that there is currently no evidence to support an indictment against Sharon. According to the source, there is also no chance that Attorney General Menachem Mazuz will be able to make a decision on whether to indict Sharon before the elections. „This affair is infinite, and every new door opens another door,” he said. „We are now in a new phase of the investigation, but there’s no chance that it will be finished before the elections.” Senior police officers also said that the investigation will take several more months, and perhaps even years. Sharon „must face the public” and rebut suspicions against him or explain how he got the money, Likud MK Michael Eitan said Wednesday in an interview to Israel Radio. This was the first Likud comment on the affair since Channel 10 news reported Tuesday evening that the police have prima facie evidence indicating that Austrian brothers Martin and James Schlaff were involved in transferring $3 million to members of the Sharon family, possibly with the intention of bribing the prime minister. The existence of this evidence was revealed for the first time in a document the police recently submitted to the Rishon Letzion Magistrate’s Court. The document was made public by Channel 10. MK Roni Bar-On, from Sharon’s Kadima party, told the radio on Wednesday that the declaration on the alleged evidence was „a routine” development in every police probe. He said that the suspicions against the Sharon family were the result of „negligence by policeman who wrote something he shouldn’t have written.” He added that the police declared the alleged evidence in order to get court approval to examine the computers confiscated from the home of James Schlaff. The police are to examine computers, palm pilots and other instruments confiscated from the Schlaffs in order to seek further evidence, Israel Radio reported Wednesday. Lior Chorev, a key Sharon aide, refused to comment Tuesday. „No official is saying this. A reporter is saying this,” he said. „Since when do I need to respond to [the] speculation of a reporter on Channel 10?” Sharon used some of the $3 million to repay illegal campaign contributions he had received in 2001, in accordance with his promise to the state comptroller, but the rest remained in the Sharon family’s hands, the document stated. Police submitted the document in response to the Schlaff brothers’ request that the court forbid investigators from examining two laptop computers that they had seized from the house of the brothers’ parents. The document stated that „during the investigation, prima facie evidence was found regarding the involvement of James Schlaff and his brother, Martin Schlaff, in transferring $3 million to the prime minister’s family.” While the document also noted that police are investigating suspicions that bribes were accepted, it did not state that they have prima facie evidence against Sharon. However, legal sources noted, there would be no need for them to say so, since Sharon was not a party to the court proceeding. The investigation into the money received by the Sharons from overseas has been going on for about four years. But according to a senior legal source who has been involved in Justice Ministry discussions of the case, a breakthrough occurred in recent weeks. This did not change the police’s previous conclusions, the source said, but it did significantly bolster the evidence supporting those conclusions. The source attributed the breakthrough largely to the fact that the Austrian authorities, who for a long time had been refusing to cooperate with the investigation, changed their mind a few weeks ago and began transferring documents to the Israel Police, including bank statements. However, Vienna has not yet acceded to the police’s request for permission to depose witnesses in Austria. Police are also seeking permission to depose witnesses in Canada, South Africa and the Virgin Islands. The money that was transferred to the Sharons was officially sent by Cyril Kern, a British businessman living in South Africa. However, police have long suspected that Kern was merely a front man, and that the money was actually supplied by someone else. Martin Schlaff, a Jewish-Austrian businessman who is one of the owners of both the Austria Casino and the Jericho Casino, has often been cited as a likely source of this money. Schlaff, whose parents have a house here, is a long-time friend of both Sharon and Sharon’s chief advisor, attorney Dov Weissglas. Police raided the house of the Schlaffs’ parents two weeks ago, while James Schlaff was visiting Israel. In addition to the laptops, they seized cell phones, numerous documents and a PDA. James is due to return to Israel next week to be present when police examine the contents of the computers. Political furor erupts over allegations The political establishment erupted Tuesday evening following the Channel 10 report on the affair. Opposition MKs called on Mazuz to decide as soon as possible whether an indictment against Sharon should be filed. Shinui Chairman Yosef Lapid said in response to the allegations against Sharon that Mazuz must demand that Sharon stand trial before the elections, and if a trial does proceed, Sharon must be barred from running for the premiership. MK Ofir Pines-Paz, strategic head of the Labor Party, said, „This is an earthquake in Israeli politics, which have reached a new low today, when the prime minister was accused for the first time of receiving bribes.” MK Yuli Tamir, who runs Labor’s public relations, said that if the police have evidence connecting Sharon to the bribery affair, then he must resign from his post. „We trust the law enforcement authorities to do their work quickly and efficiently. It is time to disconnect wealth from power and put a stop to the deterioration of the norms of morality in Israel,” she said. Chairman of the Knesset Ethics Committee, Aryeh Eldad (National Union), said, „The nation of Israel is knowingly letting a crime family lead it, and the latest update is another link on the chain of the Sharon family’s corruption. Former MK and Meretz chairman Yossi Sarid called on Sharon to retire from politics and spare the public from what he called a burdensome and corrupt presence. „Sharon is the big apple, and as long as he rots, the entire box will rot. The rotting is horrible and more tangible and dangerous to Israel than any threats from outside,” he said.