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Sharon denies links to prisoner's family influenced swap deal

Donald Macintyre
Thursday 04 March 2004 01:00 GMT
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Ariel Sharon yesterday moved swiftly to limit the damage inflicted by the exposure of his former business connection with the family of the Israeli reservist officer released as part of the increasingly controversial prisoner swap with Hizbollah in January.

The Israeli premier dismissed as a "wild attack" suggestions in the daily newspaper Maariv that his support for the exchange might have been influenced by his one-time association with Shimon Cohen, the father-in-law of the released reservist colonel Elhanan Tennenbaum. He strongly denied he knew of Mr Tennenbaum's connection to Mr Cohen when the exchange was being negotiated.

The report came amid increasing restiveness in Israel about the swap, which was brokered with assistance from the German government. Israel released more than 400 Palestinian and 23 Lebanese prisoners - as well as the bodies of 59 Lebanese citizens - in exchange for the release of Mr Tennenbaum, held by Hizbollah militants for three years, and the bodies of three Israeli soldiers.

Puzzlement about why Mr Sharon persuaded his Cabinet to agree to the bargain has been fuelled by the revelation that far from being a military hero, Mr Tennenbaum told investigators that he was lured into a trap after travelling to Dubai to negotiate a drug deal as he was deeply in debt.

Doubt has been cast on that account by a report in yesterday's Haaretz that Mr Tennenbaum was carrying secret military documents. Though security officials negotiated an immunity deal with Mr Tennenbaum's lawyers last week amid fears he might have been forced to divulge classified information to his captors, such a deal would be unlikely to survive any evidence that he was seeking to sell secrets for money.

Mr Sharon yesterday denied that the exchange had been influenced by his association with Mr Cohen, who Maariv reported had helped to manage the Sharon family ranch in the 1970s and was part-owner of a company run by Mr Sharon's wife, Lili. The Prime Minister told reporters: "I didn't know of the former family ties of Mr Shimon Cohen ... whom I hadn't seen or spoken to in decades."

The paper laid heavy emphasis on its claim that the Prime Minister met eight times with the Tennenbaum family during his captivity in contrast to much less frequent meetings with the relatives of Israeli soldiers missing in Lebanon. Mr Cohen himself told the paper that though his relatives had asked to use the family connection in their dealings with the Israeli government over Mr Tennenbaum's fate, he had refused to allow them to do so.

The Labour Knesset member Ophir Pines said yesterday Mr Sharon's denial was "unbelievable". As the left wing party Meretz demanded Mr Sharon's resignation, Mr Pines said there should be an official investigation into whether the prime minister behaved improperly.

* A leading Hamas spokesman Abd al-Aziz Rantissi, last night vowed vengeance after an Israeli missile killed three of the organisation's militants as they travelled in a car in Gaza yesterday. The army said the three men were planning attacks on Israelis when they were killed.

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