MIDDLE EAST: Police questioned the Israeli Prime Minister, Mr Ariel Sharon, yesterday over his alleged involvement in a bribery case that threatens to bring him down. At the same time some members of his own right-wing coalition used the affair to attack him over his dramatic proposal earlier this week of evacuating most of the settlements in the Gaza Strip, writes Peter Hirschberg in Jerusalem
Following the 2½-hour interrogation at the Prime Minister's official residence in Jerusalem, a police spokesman said Mr Sharon had co-operated fully.
The case involves Mr David Appel, a real-estate developer and power-broker in the ruling Likud party, who last month was indicted for trying to bribe Mr Sharon in an effort to win his support for the development of a tourism project on a Greek island in the 1990s.
According to the charges, Mr Appel paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to Mr Sharon's son, Gilad, to act as a consultant on the project, even though he did not have the requisite professional skills.
Mr Sharon claims he knew nothing about the payments to his son.
If Mr Sharon is indicted he will almost certainly have to step down, or at least suspend himself until a trial has run its course.
Already the scandalhas eroded his credibility. Many politicians and commentators have suggested that his decision to reveal his plan this week for the evacuation of 17 settlements in Gaza was a ploy to divert public attention from his legal troubles.
The Gaza evacuation is part of Mr Sharon's "disengagement" plan, whereby Israel would take unilateral steps to separate from the Palestinians in the absence of any progress in talks between the sides.
The Tourism Minister, Mr Beni Elon, of the ultra-nationalist National Union party which is part of Mr Sharon's coalition, insisted yesterday that a prime minister who was being investigated was inherently weak and could therefore not take decisions of major importance.
But Mr Sharon, who has also been under attack from within his own party since announcing his Gaza pullout plans, did win support yesterday from his Defence Minister, Mr Shaul Mofaz.
Israel denied the killing last night of a leader of the Hamas militant group's military wing after an explosion in a Gaza Strip refugee camp. - (Reuters)