Indictment dogs Sharon, deputies demand his head

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon came under pressure from within his Cabinet on Sunday to quit if Israel’s attorney general adopts r...

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon came under pressure from within his Cabinet on Sunday to quit if Israel’s attorney general adopts reported recommendations to indict him in a long-running corruption scandal.

Israel’s Channel 2 television said on Sunday that the State Attorney Edna Arbel submitted a draft indictment within days to Attorney General Menachem Mazuz, who will make the final decision on whether to put Sharon on trial. The decision could take up to two months. ‘‘Under such circumstances, the Prime Minister should resign,’’ said Infrastructure Minister Yosef Paritzky of the Shinui Party, Sharon’s main partner in the governing coalition.

Uzi Landau, a minister without portfolio and member of Sharon’s right-wing Likud, said the 76-year-old leader should at least suspend himself if charges are filed.

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The Justice Ministry declined comment. A lawyer for Sharon, who has denied any wrongdoing, called the leak politically motivated.

The report plunged Sharon deeper into trouble two weeks before a visit to Washington, where he hopes to win American President George W. Bush’s backing for his plan unilaterally to evacuate Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip and some in West Bank territories.

The case centres on payments of hundreds of thousands of dollars that an Israeli land developer and Likud stalwart made to Sharon’s son Gilad, whom he hired in the late 1990s as an adviser on a never-completed project to build a Greek resort .

—(Reuters)