Police divided on Sharon's role in Greek island affair
By Baruch Kra
Senior police officers are split over whether to recommend indicting Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in the so-called Greek island affair, after a six-hour interrogation of the premier Thursday left some convinced of his innocence and others convinced of his guilt.
According to police sources, Major General Moshe Mizrahi, who heads the Criminal Investigations Department and senior investigators from the international investigations unit believe that Sharon cannot be absolved of responsibility in the case.
But Brigadier General Yohanan Danino, who heads the International Investigations unit, believes that Sharon was telling the truth when he said that he was not involved in the business ties between his son Gilad and a Likud-affiliated businessman, David Appel.
The police suspicions stem from the fact that Appel hired Gilad Sharon as a consultant and paid him hundreds of thousands of dollars to help him market a tourism resort that Appel wanted to build on a Greek island.
At about the same time - while Appel was still trying to win Greek government consent for the venture - Sharon, then foreign minister, hosted the deputy foreign minister of Greece, and Appel apparently used the opportunity to lobby the visitor.
Appel also helped Sharon during the latter's 1999 campaign for the Likud leadership by providing logistical support, financing and activists, while Sharon apparently tried to help Appel get the Ginaton neighborhood, where the businessman had a real estate venture, annexed to the city of Lod.
Police are trying to determine whether any or all of these actions constituted quid pro quos that could support bribery charges. A key issue is whether Sharon was aware of both his son's business activities and Appel's interest in the island and tourist resort plans for it.
The disagreement within the senior ranks of the police has existed for some time, but Thursday's interrogation of Sharon sharpened the division. Some senior officers charged that Danino does not understand the gravity of the evidence against Sharon, adding that very few cases produce as much evidence as this one. The evidence includes documents and tapes of conversations between Appel and Sharon, Appel and Gilad and Appel and Industry Minister Ehud Olmert, who is also under suspicion of using his post as mayor of Jerusalem to help Appel with the project in exchange for Appel's help in Olmert's bid for the party leadership in 1999.
Danino, police sources said, concurs that the case raises many questions, but believes that there is insufficient evidence to support an indictment.
The police report to the prosecution in any case would not include a formal recommendation on whether to indict, since this practice was ended by former public security minister Uzi Landau. Normally, however, it would include an assessment of whether there is sufficient evidence to indict.
But Haaretz has learned that Danino does not even intend to include such an assessment in his report. Officers who support him argue that since several prosecutors, including State Prosecutor Edna Arbel, have been following the investigation closely and are already familiar with all the evidence, such an assessment would be redundant. In any case, sources in the prosecution say they take the suspicions against the prime minister very seriously.
During Thursday's interrogation, which took place at Sharon's official residence, the prime minister acknowledged that he was friendly with Appel and had requested the latter's help in his primary campaign, but denied that this was related to Appel's decision to hire Gilad or to any of the other elements in the affair.
Regarding his assistance to Appel in the Lod real estate deal, Sharon said that he had acted out of purely professional considerations. Police sources, however, said that Sharon failed to provide clear answers to difficult questions.
The premier's acknowledgment of Appel's assistance in the primary campaign came after he was presented with transcripts of conversations between the two men in which Sharon repeatedly asked whether Appel would help him and thanked him for a meal to which Appel had invited him.
Thursday's interrogation did not deal with the so-called Cyril Kern affair, in which the prime minister is suspected of accepting illegal campaign donations that may have been intended as bribes.
Police have decided to postpone questioning Sharon on that affair until the Supreme Court decides whether Gilad Sharon is obliged to hand over various documents, and until a few remaining avenues of investigation overseas have been pursued, as they believe that it would be better to interrogate Sharon only after they have acquired all the information possible. They are still hoping for the Austrian courts to allow them to take depositions in Vienna regarding the source of money transferred to Sharon accounts to pay back 1999 campaign donations that were illegal because they came from abroad. Police want to know if the same donors who provided the 1999 money are behind the more recent funds used to pay back those illegal contributions. Among the names mentioned in that regard are Arye Genger, the U.S.-Israeli businessman who has been an informal back channel to the White House for Sharon, and Martin Schlaff, one of the owners of the Jericho casino.