South Africa’s justice ministry received official documentation on Thursday requesting help in investigating a $1,5-million loan from a local businessman to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.
Justice representative Paul Setsetse said that minister Penuell Maduna would study the request from the office of Israel’s attorney general before deciding how to proceed.
”The position now is the minister will study the documentation and issue a statement in due course … to announce a way forward. They (the office of the state attorney general) have expressed a sense of urgency in the documents, and we are also mindful of the fact that they are busy with their investigation, so we will try to expedite the issue as speedily as possible,” he said.
Sharon’s re-election campaign has been stung by allegations of corruption, with his Labour party rival Amram Mitzna calling on him to explain the $1,5-million (about R13-million) loan or resign.
The Cape Town businessman, Cyril Kern, said earlier this week he and Sharon had been close friends for more than 50 years and saw and spoke to each other regularly.
”I have been a personal friend of Ariel Sharon since 1948 when we were in the same brigade in the army together. I loaned money to a friend and was very happy to do so.”
Kern added that he was not involved in Israeli politics ”in any shape or form”.
According to Israel’s Ha’aretz newspaper, the loan was to serve as collateral for a loan Sharon’s sons Omri and Gilad took out to pay back a company from which the prime minister received irregular contributions during his campaign for the leadership of the Likud party in 1999. – Sapa