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Barak questioned on funding allegations

JERUSALEM: Israel's state comptroller questioned Prime Minister Ehud Barak over alleged fund-raising illegalities linked to his 1999 election campaign, Barak's office said on Thursday.

The affair is the latest in an epidemic of graft and impropriety probes surrounding Israeli officials past and present, among them President Ezer Weizman, Barak's predecessor Benjamin Netanyahu, and former Justice Minister Tzachi Hanegbi.

Barak, who has denied all connection to the suspected fund-raising violations, is not expected to be implicated.

But officials close to him are reported to be under investigation, and opposition Likud leaders said Barak must have known about the alleged infractions.

"The prime minister and the state comptroller met last night in the prime minister's office, at the comptroller's request," Barak's office said in a statement on Thursday.

"During the meeting, which lasted about 30 minutes, the prime minister answered questions put to him by the comptroller over the report he is preparing on the 1999 elections."

Comptroller Eliezer Goldberg's report, due to be released in a week, is expected to examine non-profit organisations (NPOs) set up to raise campaign funds for Barak.

Likud figures have charged the NPOs -- two of them reported to have been set up by Barak's brother-in-law -- illegally channeled funds into campaigns for Barak and his Labour Party.

"If there is a single member of the public who thinks that Ehud Barak didn't know, or didn't hear...he is simply mistaken, big-time," Limor Livnat, a Likud lawmaker, said on Thursday.

At issue is a legal grey area over funding for the direct election of the prime minister, a recent innovation in Israel.

Media reports quoted Barak as telling Goldberg the attorney-general had ruled before the elections that NGOs are not forbidden from raising funds for individual candidates.

The only restrictions are on donations to parties vying for parliament, the attorney-general's opinion was quoted as saying.

The law explicitly restricts individual contributions to political parties. But funding rules governing the parallel premiership race, instituted only in 1996, remain unclear.

Former comptroller Miriam Ben-Porat said that in order for Barak to be seen as responsible "it must be proven that the organisations did it on his behalf and in his name".

The Israeli political establishment has been buffeted in recent months by a cascade of investigations into alleged wrongdoing in high places.

A police task force is probing allegations that Weizman, as a politician from 1988 until 1993, accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars from a French millionaire friend in breach of laws requiring public servants to disclose gifts.

Police have also repeatedly interrogated Netanyahu and his wife, Sara, over suspicions they were involved in a bribery scam and illegally kept gifts belonging to the government.

Likud legislator Hanegbi suspended himself on Tuesday from an official committee to select new judges, after the Justice Ministry he once headed said he would be indicted in connection with his former role in an NGO dealing with road safety.-Reuters