Austrian baron may face Israel graft rap

ISRAELI police are recommending an Austrian billionaire be charged with bribery for funnelling millions of dollars into the pockets of former Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon, a newspaper reported yesterday.

According to the Haaretz newspaper, National Fraud Squad investigators have recommended that financier Martin Schlaff be indicted for transferring some US$4.5 million into the bank accounts of the former premier's sons, Gilad and Omri Sharon.

They are also pressing for Sharon's sons to be indicted for serving as a conduit for a bribe, the paper said, without citing a source for the information.

The results of the seven-year corruption probe have been passed on to the office of the state prosecutor as well as to the head of the police investigations department, Haaretz said.

But police spokesman Mickey Rosenfeld refused to confirm the report, saying the fraud squad had issued no statement on the matter. He would not say whether or not they had completed their investigation.

Police first began investigating allegations of bribery linked to the Sharon family in 2003, and they soon established a connection with Schlaff.

In December 2005, they raided a Jerusalem house owned by Schlaff and a week later, announced they had found evidence that the premier's family had received three million dollars in bribes from the tycoon.

Twenty-four hours after the news broke, Sharon suffered a massive stroke. He has never recovered and remains in a deep coma.AFP