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June 18, 2004/Sivan 29 5764, Vol. 56, No.39
Sharon cleared of bribery charges
DAN BARON
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
JERUSALEM - As a general, Ariel Sharon proved adept at avoiding land mines. As prime minister, he has done the same in the political arena.
Sharon's latest successful circumvention came June 17, when Israel's attorney general announced that there was not enough evidence to press charges against Sharon on allegations of bribery.
Menachem Mazuz's decision to drop the long-running case against the prime minister came as no surprise, as media reports in recent weeks had predicted the decision.
"The evidence in this case does not meet the requirement of suggesting a reasonable chance of conviction - not even close," Mazuz, in his first major public appearance since taking office in January, told reporters in Jerusalem after a nationally televised news conference.
Mazuz reportedly called the prime minister shortly before the news conference to inform him of the decision, and Sharon replied, "Thank you very much," according to sources.
Sharon consistently had denied allegations that he took a bribe from real estate magnate David Appel, a Sharon friend who employed Sharon's son Gilad in the 1990s to serve as a adviser in his bid to win development rights for a lucrative Greek island resort.
Appel has been charged with trying to secure the help of Sharon, then Israel's foreign minister, by paying Gilad Sharon hundreds of thousands of dollars to serve as Appel's adviser on the development project.
An indictment recommen-dation by Mazuz in the Appel case would have made Sharon the first sitting prime minister to face criminal charges in Israel's history. In March, then-state prosecutor Edna Arbel recommended that the prime minister be indicted.
But Mazuz was unequivocal in clearing Sharon.
"It should be remembered that for more than two years, the police listened in to Appel's two phone lines, recording thousands of conversations. Nonetheless, these wiretaps yielded no evidence, either direct or indirect, for substantiating the suspicion that Sharon was bribed by Appel," Mazuz said. "It is a deafening silence."
Mazuz also closed the case against Gilad Sharon. Though the Greek island project never panned out, Mazuz took the trouble to note Gilad's "professionalism" as an adviser for Appel, a post that earned him more than $20,000 per month.
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