Last update - 00:00 17/03/2008
MKs seek pardon for Omri Sharon 'to sit at father's bedside'
By Shahar Ilan, Haaretz Correspondent
Six ministers and 25 Knesset members have petitioned President Shimon Peres to parole former MK Omri Sharon "to enable him to sit at the bedside of his father, the former prime minister" Ariel Sharon.
Ariel Sharon has been in a coma since suffering a stroke in January 2006.
Three weeks ago, Omri Sharon began serving a seven-month sentence for falsifying corporate registration records and violating the Party Financing Law.
The petition, initiated by Deputy Foreign Minister Majali Whbee (Kadima), has been signed by Kadima ministers Shaul Mofaz, Gideon Ezra, Jacob Edery, Ze'ev Boim and Ruhama Avraham Balila, as well as Labor's Shaul Simhon. Other signatories are the chair of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, Tzachi Hanegbi, and MKs from the Shas, Pensioners and Labor parties.
No MKs from Likud or National Union signed it. Three MKs on the right were asked to sign, but declined: Gideon Sa'ar and Moshe Kahlon of Likud, and Zvi Handel of National Union.
Omri Sharon played a key role in Likud's split and subsequent the formation of Kadima.
The Legal Forum for the Land of Israel said in response to the intiative: "The 30 MKs who called for paroling Omri Sharon trampled the Knesset's honor and equality before the law. If the president paroles Omri Sharon who helped him to get elected, the stench will smell from the President's Residency all the way to Maasiyahu Prison."
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