TEL AVIV, Feb 14: Omri Sharon, the disgraced son of Israel’s Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, was on Tuesday sentenced to nine months in prison on corruption charges over financing his father’s party leadership campaign.
The 41-year-old Omri, the first Israeli politician to be jailed for breaking strict party campaign laws, was handed an additional nine-month suspended sentence and fined 300,000 shekels (65,000 dollars) by magistrates in Tel Aviv.
Edna Bekenstein, the president of the Tel Aviv district court, said Omri could delay the start of his sentence until August 31, giving him the chance to spend time with his seriously ill father.
His lawyers immediately announced their intention to appeal. Omri accused the court of hanging him out to dry merely because he was so high profile.
“It’s a severe punishment. Had it not been Omri Sharon it would not have been the same severity,” he told reporters outside the court.
Omri pleaded guilty to providing false testimony, falsifying documents and violating the electoral campaigns law last year after a probe into the financing of his father’s 1999 campaign for the leadership of the Likud party.
Delivering the sentence, Bekenstein said Sharon tirelessly spun a web of deceit in order to raise unlimited funds for his father’s campaign, and insisted that his sentence would serve as a warning and lesson to others.
“He knowingly made his father sign false statements. He actively endangered the democratic process.
“This sentence has a very important impact in draining the political swamp. His crimes had an impact on the entire nation which enhances their severity.”
The sentence was welcomed by state prosecutor Erez Nurieli who pressed for jail time for the former MP, who was forced to resign his seat in parliament for the right-wing Likud faction.
“This is a happy day. The sentencing befits the severity of the crime. The public and its elected representatives must now make a reckoning. The court accepted our case that this severely damaged democracy,” he said.
The defence slammed the verdict and had argued community service would have been sufficient punishment for the contrite defendant, who has been taken into the bosom of the nation since his father suffered a massive stroke last month.
The court case follows a police investigation into allegations of illegal financing of Ariel Sharon’s successful 1999 campaign for the leadership of the Likud which has also entangled the prime minister himself.—AFP
