Region

ADEN — Yemeni troops backed by air force planes attacked Al Qaeda bastions in the south of the country on Tuesday to try to eradicate the Islamist militant group that has killed hundreds of people in Yemen since 2011.

The state news agency Saba said five local Al Qaeda leaders, including one identified as Abu Al Qa’qa’, were killed in the fighting. Five Yemeni soldiers were also killed, a local government official said.

Militants from Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) and its allies in the local Ansar Al Sharia group fled to the mountainous area in 2012 after Yemen’s army, backed by the United States, drove them out of cities they had seized in 2011.

The insurgents have posed a challenge to government efforts to restore stability to the US-allied country since long-ruling president Ali Abdullah Saleh was forced to step down in 2012 after months of pro-democracy protests.

Hundreds of volunteers from a local militia known as the Popular Committees were taking part on the side of the army in the new offensive, mounted less than two weeks after a series of air strikes killed 55 suspected militants in their main hideouts in southern Yemen.

“Heroes of the armed and security forces, in cooperation with the Popular Committees, are determined to destroy the remnants of the terrorist elements in Al Mahfad area,” Abyan governor Jamal Al Aqel was quoted as saying by the defence ministry.

The militants have carried out dozens of bombings, suicide attacks and commando-style raids against military installations, government facilities and foreign nationals.

Local news websites have reported that several soldiers were captured by militants in the early stages of the fighting and photos were posted online of men in uniform sitting in the back of a truck, between masked men holding an Al Qaeda banner.

It was not immediately possible to verify the reports.

Foreigners

The militants have carried out dozens of bombings, suicide attacks and commando-style raids against military installations, government facilities and foreign nationals.

On Tuesday, President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi said 70 per cent of Al Qaeda fighters were foreigners.

“Whoever is doubtful of that among our brothers should go to the morgues in hospitals and see the corpses of people whose countries have refused to accept them. They’re from Brazil, the Netherlands, Australia, France and various countries,” Hadi told graduates at the police academy.

Local sources said unmanned drone aircraft had been seen above the target areas before the strikes earlier this month. The United States acknowledges using drone strikes to target AQAP in Yemen but it does not comment on the practice.

The air strikes came after after an online video was posted on the Internet showing AQAP leader Nasser Al Wuhaishi addressing a crowd of fighters in an undisclosed mountainous region of Yemen and vowing to attack the United States.

US officials credit the drone strategy for the fact that AQAP is no longer able to control territory in Yemen as it did in 2011. But critics say the strikes and civilian casualties are increasing sympathy for AQAP and resentment against Washington.

Saudi Arabia also watches AQAP with concern, since the branch was founded by citizens of both countries and has sworn to bring down its ruling Al Saud family.

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — Israelis and the Palestinians appeared determined Monday to seal their divorce as Washington’s deadline for reaching a Mideast peace deal was to expire, leaving hopes for a breakthrough in tatters.

After more than a year of intensive shuttle diplomacy by US Secretary of State John Kerry with the initial aim of brokering a deal by April 29, Washington’s patience appeared to be growing thin as both sides moved to distance themselves from the crisis-hit talks.

Speaking to a closed meeting of international figures, Kerry reportedly said that if Israel didn’t seize the opportunity to make peace soon, it risked becoming an “apartheid state”, a US news website reported.

“A two-state solution will be clearly underscored as the only real alternative. Because a unitary state winds up either being an apartheid state with second class citizens — or it ends up being a state that destroys the capacity of Israel to be a Jewish state,” he said, according to a transcript obtained by The Daily Beast and published late Sunday.

Apartheid is the term for the system of racial segregation put in place by the white supremacist regime in South Africa from 1948 until the country’s first all-race elections in 1994.

Although the process was at a point of “confrontation and hiatus”, Kerry insisted it was not dead — yet.

The sword of reconciliation 

But both the Palestinians and the Israelis appear to have drawn their own conclusions about the life expectancy of the US-led negotiations, which have made no visible progress since they began nine months ago.

Last week, Palestinian leaders in the West Bank and the Hamas-run Gaza Strip announced a surprise unity deal aimed at ending years of occasionally violent rivalry.

Israel denounced the deal as a deathblow to peace hopes and said it would not negotiate with any government backed by the Islamist movement. Washington called the deal “unhelpful”.

Under the agreement, the Palestine Liberation Organisation and Hamas will work to establish a new unity government of political independents which would be headed by President Mahmoud Abbas, whose Fateh Party dominates the PLO.

It would recognise Israel, renounce violence and abide by existing agreements, in line with the key principles set out by the Mideast peacemaking Quartet.

But Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has ruled out any negotiation with the new government unless Hamas accepts Israel, forcing Abbas to chose between the two.

Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat accused Israel of using reconciliation as a weapon during the talks.

“Everyday they were asking: What would you do with Gaza?” he told Voice of Palestine.

“So if peace cannot be achieved without Gaza, and it cannot be achieved with Gaza, then there is an Israeli aim here, and that is not achieving peace.”

Meanwhile, in remarks in Gaza on Monday, Mussa Abu Marzuk, a top Cairo-based Hamas leader, reaffirmed that the unity government would “not be political”.

He said its mandate would be primarily to prepare for elections within six months, restructuring the security services and overseeing the reconstruction of the battered Gaza Strip.

An unwise response 

Tzahi HaNegbi, an MP close to Netanyahu, told army radio Israel should “wait to understand the meaning” of the Palestinian unity deal.

“Israel must act intelligently and with restraint, and not to play into the Palestinians’ hands by helping them out of the trap into which they have fallen,” he said.

Other commentators criticised the Israeli leader’s handling of the crisis.

“His first response was: either Hamas or the peace process. This was not the wisest response,” wrote Ben-Dror Yemini in Maariv newspaper.

Instead of a negative response, Netanyahu could have “embarrassed” the Palestinians by expressing support and an outstretched hand, which they would most likely have rejected, he wrote.

“Israel would have scored points in the blame game,” he added. Instead, Netanyahu’s remarks had simply painted Israel as “a rejectionist of peace”.

Israel and Washington are reportedly at odds over the proposed new Palestinian government, with US officials waiting to see whether it will embrace the Quartet’s principles.

In a separate but related development, the PLO late Sunday said it would pursue efforts to sign up to another 60 UN bodies and international agreements. There was no immediate Israeli response.

One of Israel’s conditions for agreeing to the US-backed talks was that the Palestinians refrain from pursuing recognition in UN and international bodies.

BEIRUT — Syrian President Bashar Assad declared on Monday he would seek re-election in June, defying calls from his opponents to step aside and allow a political solution to the country’s devastating civil war.

Assad formally submitted his nomination to Syria’s constitutional court to stand in an election which his Western and Arab foes have dismissed as a parody of democracy.

He is the seventh person to put himself forward for Syria’s first multi-candidate presidential vote in decades, but none of his rivals are expected to mount a serious challenge to 44 years of Assad family rule.

The announcement was made in parliament by speaker Mohammad Al Laham, who read out Assad’s submission. “I ... Dr Bashar Hafez al Assad ... wish to nominate myself for the post of president of the republic, hoping that parliament will endorse it,” it said.

State media said crowds gathered to celebrate the coming election and recent military gains by Assad’s forces who, supported by foreign allies, have turned the tide of a war which 18 months ago challenged his control over Damascus.

“As soon as we heard that the president announced his candidacy we came down to the streets to celebrate because we cannot see any future Syria without his excellency President Bashar Assad,” said Khadija Hashma, one of about 100 people demonstrating in the central Damascus district of Mezzeh.

In a statement minutes after his candidacy was announced, Assad appealed for restraint and said any “demonstration of joy” should be responsible, urging people not to fire celebratory shots in the air.

Election ‘illegitimate’

Syria’s opposition leaders in exile, barred from standing by a constitutional clause requiring candidates to have lived in Syria continuously for 10 years, dismissed the vote as a charade.

The constitution also says candidates must have the backing of 35 members of the pro-Assad parliament, effectively ruling out dissenting voices from the campaign.

The National Coalition, Syria’s main opposition umbrella group in exile, said Assad’s determination to win another term in office showed he was not interested in a negotiated settlement to the conflict.

“From the start this regime is illegitimate, and so is this action,” said Hadi Bahra, a member of the coalition’s political committee. “This has no value, but says that the regime is not serious about a political solution.”

Authorities have not said how they will hold the vote in a country where six million people have been displaced and large swathes of territory remain outside government control.

Another 2.5 million refugees have fled Syria, many smuggling themselves across the frontier to avoid Assad’s security forces. Election commission head Hisham Al Shaar was quoted by Syria’s Al Watan newspaper on Monday as saying Syrians who had left the country illegally would not be eligible to vote.

More than 150,000 people have been killed in Syria’s conflict, which started when protests against Assad’s rule erupted in March 2011, inspired by other Arab uprisings.

Demonstrations were put down by force and the uprising became an armed insurgency which now pits mainly Sunni Muslim rebels and foreign jihadis against forces loyal to Assad, who is from Syria’s Alawite minority — an offshoot of Shiite Islam.

The president has been backed by Iran and Russia and his soldiers have been reinforced by Shiite fighters from Iraq and Lebanon’s group Hizbollah, while regional Sunni Muslim powers have backed the rebels.

Turning point?

Assad’s forces have consolidated their grip around Damascus and central Syria, and hold the Alawite heartland provinces on the Mediterranean coast. Rebels control much of the north and east, but have been plagued by infighting.

Two weeks ago Assad said the Syrian conflict had reached a turning point and the deputy leader of Hizbollah said it was time Assad’s Western foes accepted he was there to stay, adding that Assad would win re-election decisively.

Peace talks in Geneva brokered by international mediator Lakhdar Brahimi, who is widely expected to announce his resignation soon, broke down in February.

Brahimi has warned that holding the presidential election on
June 3 would present an even greater challenge to reviving negotiations which were supposed to include discussion of a transitional governing body in Syria including both opposition and government representatives.

Bahra said Assad’s campaign for a third term in office contravened an accord, known as Geneva 1, agreed by international powers in Switzerland two years ago which was supposed to form the basis for the peace talks.

“He is in defiance of all UN Security Council resolutions and outside the Geneva 1 process,” Bahra said.

BAGHDAD — Attacks including a spate of suicide bombings killed 57 people on Monday as soldiers and policemen cast their votes in Iraq’s first parliamentary election since US troops withdrew.

The bombings in Baghdad and the north and west raise serious concerns about the security forces’ ability to protect ordinary voters on polling day on Wednesday, when more than 20 million are eligible to take part.

They come amid a protracted surge in violence and fears the country is edging towards all-out conflict.

Nine attackers wearing suicide belts mostly targeted polling stations in Baghdad and cities north of the capital, while roadside bombs struck military convoys and targeted journalists covering the election.

The deadliest attack struck northeast of Baghdad in the mostly-Kurdish town of Khanaqin, near Iraq’s border with Iran.

A suicide bomber killed 30 people who had gathered to celebrate the release of a video purporting to show ailing President Jalal Talabani casting his vote in Germany, where he is receiving treatment for a stroke.

At least 50 others were wounded in the attack, which struck near the offices of Talabani’s Patriotic Union of Kurdistan in the town.

Two suicide bombers also struck the capital.

At one polling station in west Baghdad where a militant armed with an explosives-rigged vest killed seven policemen, ambulances ferried off the wounded as soldiers cordoned off the street, an AFP journalist reported.

Five members of the security forces were killed by another suicide bomber at a polling station in the city’s north.

Attacks elsewhere in the country killed 15 members of the security forces, officials said. Overall, more than 120 people were wounded in the bloodshed.

In the main northern city of Mosul, six Iraqi journalists were wounded as a bomb exploded while they were in a military vehicle to cover the vote.

The blasts shattered an early morning calm as soldiers and policemen queued outside polling stations amid tight security, before leaving with the traditional purple ink-stained finger indicating they had voted.

No group claimed responsibility for the bloodshed, but Sunni militant groups have been accused of carrying out previous suicide bombings in an attempt to derail the political process.

Government officials did not publicly comment on the attacks.

Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki, who hails from Iraq’s Shiite Arab majority and is accused by critics of monopolising power and targeting minority groups, is seeking a third term in Wednesday’s election.

But there is widespread public frustration over poor basic services, rampant corruption and high unemployment, as well as the persistent violence.

‘Iraqis want change’ 

The month-long campaign has seen Baghdad and other cities plastered with posters and decked out in bunting, as candidates have taken to the streets, staged loud rallies and challenged each other in angry debates.

“All Iraqis have a desire for change,” said Jawad Kadhim, a police sergeant.

“There should be a change from the previous government which has failed in all senses of the word. The parliament did not do anything.”

Along with more than 800,000 members of the security forces eligible to vote at upwards of 500 polling stations nationwide, hospital and prison staff, patients and inmates were also voting on Monday.

Polls officially closed at 6:00pm (1500 GMT) for special balloting and overseas voters.

Attacks on candidates and their campaign staff and rallies have cast a shadow over the election, and parts of Iraq that have been out of government control for months will not see any voting.

Authorities announced a week-long public holiday to try to bolster security for the election.

The unrest is the latest in a months-long surge in violence that has claimed nearly 3,000 lives already this year, while anti-government fighters have held the town of Fallujah a short drive from Baghdad since the beginning of the year.

Although voters have a long list of grievances, in addition to the near-daily violence, the election has centred on Maliki’s efforts to stay in power.

His opponents, who span the communal spectrum, accuse him of shoring up his power base, and Sunni Arabs in particular say the 63-year-old incumbent discriminates against them.

Maliki contends that foreign interference is behind deteriorating security and complains of being saddled with a unity government of groups that snipe at him in public and block his efforts to pass legislation.

Analysts and diplomats say that with a fractious and divided opposition and no clear replacement, Maliki remains the frontrunner.

No single party is likely to win an absolute majority, and as with previous elections, coalition talks are expected to take months.

MINYA, Egypt — An Egyptian court sentenced 682 alleged Islamists and Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohamed Badie to death Monday, a lawyer and prosecutor said, after two brief sessions the defence partly boycotted.

The same court in the southern province of Minya also reversed 492 of 529 death sentences it passed in March, commuting most of those to life in prison.

The court, presided over by Judge Said Youssef Sabry, had sparked an international outcry with its initial sentencing last month amid an extensive crackdown on supporters of ousted Islamist president Mohamed Morsi.

The crackdown has extended to secular-leaning dissidents who supported Morsi’s overthrow but have since turned on the army-installed regime.

In Cairo, a court banned the April 6 youth movement that spearheaded the 2011 revolt which toppled strongman Hosni Mubarak, following a complaint accusing it of defaming Egypt and colluding with foreign parties.

In Minya, judge Sabry is set to confirm the death sentences on June 21.

Under Egyptian law, death sentences are referred to the country’s top Islamic scholar for an advisory opinion before being ratified. A court may choose to commute the sentences, which can later be challenged at an appeals court.

Of the 683 sentenced on Monday, only 73 are in custody, prosecutor Abdel Rahim Abdel Malek said. The others have a right to a retrial if they turn themselves in.

Monday’s hearing lasted just 10 minutes, said Khaled Elkomy, a defence lawyer who was in court.

The verdict was the first against Badie, spiritual head of Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood, in the several trials he faces on various charges along with Morsi and other Brotherhood leaders.

Some female relatives waiting outside the courtroom fainted on hearing news of the verdict.

“Where is the justice?” others chanted.

A fugitive from the trial who only identified himself as Gamal and a member of the Brotherhood lashed out at the court.

“This is a political trial against those who oppose the military,” said the 25-year-old who was among the 683 sentenced Monday but who is in hiding.

“My cousin has also been condemned, but we will continue our lives and this process will not stop the youths” from demonstrating, he said.

The Brotherhood urged the world to act against “gross human rights violations and injustice committed by the military junta in Egypt against its own people”.

It said in a statement it would “continue to use all peaceful means to end military rule and achieve justice”.

‘Industrial scale’ sentencings 

Those sentenced on Monday were accused of involvement in the murder and attempted murder of policemen in Minya province on
August 14, the day police killed hundreds of Morsi supporters during clashes in Cairo.

Defence lawyers boycotted the last session, branding it “farcical” after the mass death sentencing, which the United Nations denounced as a breach of international human rights law.

Amnesty International condemned Monday’s death sentences.

“Egypt’s judiciary risks becoming just another part of the authorities’ repressive machinery, issuing sentences of death and life imprisonment on an industrial scale,” Amnesty’s Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui said in a statement.

Lawyer Elkomy claims 60 per cent of the 529 defendants sentenced in March, including teachers and some doctors, have evidence that “proves they were not present the day they were accused of attacking the Matay police station” in Minya, said the Avaaz rights group.

Defence lawyers and relatives of defendants said those sentenced to death in March also included a man who was killed on August 14.

The government has defended the court’s handling of the first mass death sentences, insisting they were issued only “after careful study” and were subject to appeal.

Prosecutor Abdel Malek defended the charges against the 529, saying the prosecution compiled videos and witness testimony.

“We have strong evidence that incriminates all those sentenced to death,” he told AFP.

Last month’s death sentences sent a chill through opponents of the military-installed regime, which has held mass trials of thousands of alleged Islamists since Morsi’s ouster.

Amnesty says more than 1,400 people have been killed in the police crackdown since the army overthrew Morsi, Egypt’s first elected and civilian leader.

TEHRAN — The payment of “blood money” spared 358 Iranians from execution last year, the country’s prosecutor general said on Monday.

The practice, made possible under the Islamic Sharia Law of diya (restitution), allows a convict to be pardoned by a victim’s family if they receive financial recompense.

The 358 cases fell in the last Iranian calendar year, between March 2013 and March 2014, the Fars news agency quoted prosecutor general Gholam Hossein Mohseni Ejeie as saying.

According to the United Nations, more than 170 people have been executed in Iran since the beginning of 2014.

However, Iranian media have in recent weeks published details of several capital cases in which blood money spared the killers from execution.

The most high-profile case involved a blindfolded murderer known only as Balal being pictured with a hangman’s noose around his neck.

The convict escaped the gallows at the last minute when his victim’s mother pardoned him, and only administered a slap on his face as punishment.

The blood money in the Balal case had been raised from the proceeds of a film director’s special screening, amounting to 3 billion rials ($90,000).

After Balal dramatically escaped death, media reported several other cases in which the victim’s family pardoned the killer at the very last minute, with one being pardoned even after he was hanged for a few minutes.

Another fundraising event was the screening of a film called “Sensitive Floor” which was held by famous actors and artists on Sunday.

The organisers managed to raise 7,000,000,000 rials ($200,000) as blood money which is needed for three convicts on death row.

Meanwhile, Ahmed Shaheed, the UN’s human rights rapporteur on Iran, has urged Iranian authorities to conduct a re-trial of a woman on death row, to “ensure the defendant’s right to due process which is guaranteed under both Iranian law and international law”.

Reyhaneh Jabbari, 26, was sentenced to death for the murder of a former intelligence official, and it has been suggested that her execution could be imminent.

TEHRAN — Iran’s former president Mohammad Khatami has called for the release of political prisoners and urged an end to house arrest for two leaders who alleged fraud after the 2009 election.

In remarks published by ISNA news agency, Khatami, in office between 1997 and 2005, said such steps would benefit the country.

He was referring to Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi, reformists held incommunicado since February 2011, after they urged massive street protests following the election.

Thousands of protesters, reformists and journalists were arrested after demonstrations that became known as Iran’s green movement.

“The lift on house arrests and the release of all those who are in prison is beneficial for the country, establishment and everyone,” Khatami said, referring to the prisoners.

“Although the release has been already delayed for too long, many of them will be free soon providing that no other case is being built against them,” Khatami was quoted as saying.

Khatami said a “change” in the country’s political atmosphere was among expectations from the administration of self-declared moderate President Hassan Rouhani, who won a first-round electoral victory over conservatives last year.

“Even if they were freed one day earlier, it would be an auspicious matter and in regards with the lift on the house arrest, I hope it happens,” Khatami added.

The fate of Mousavi and Karroubi — both of whom are reportedly suffering health problems — has attracted global attention and triggered heated debate at home.

ALGIERS — Abdelaziz Bouteflika was sworn in as Algeria’s president for a fourth term Monday, a year after suffering a mini-stroke that was expected to end his 15-year grip on power.

Sitting in a wheelchair and dressed in a navy three-piece suit and crimson tie, Bouteflika placed his right hand on the Koran as he repeated in a frail voice the oath read out by Supreme Court chief Slimane Boudi.

The 77-year-old, who was also in a wheelchair when he cast his ballot in the April 17 election, has hardly been seen in public since the mini-stroke that confined him to hospital in Paris for three months last year.

Official results showed he won 81.5 per cent of the votes in the election marred by low turnout and claims of fraud by his opponents, including main rival Ali Benflis, who received just 12.18 per cent.

In a brief inauguration speech before senior Algerian officials, diplomats and other delegates, Bouteflika stumbled on his words as he thanked the security forces and observers for “ensuring the election was run smoothly”.

Bouteflika also paid tribute to voters and other candidates in the election, which he hailed as a “day of celebration and democracy for Algeria”.

At the start of the ceremony, Bouteflika had placed his hands on his knees as he inspected soldiers following a display of their weapons outside the beachfront Palace of Nations resort.

After shaking hands with the head of a constitutional panel, Mourad Medelci, and members of his government, Bouteflika was greeted by celebratory ululation.

The inauguration ceremony wrapped up after 30 minutes with a standing ovation for Bouteflika and a rousing rendition of the Algerian national anthem.

The opposition boycotted Monday’s swearing-in ceremony, including five parties that had called on their supporters to stay away from the election.

Among the absentees was Benflis, who has refused to recognise Bouteflika’s reelection, saying that doing so would make him “complicit in fraud”.

LONDON — The Qatar-based satellite network Al Jazeera served Egypt with a $150 million compensation claim on Monday for what it said was damage to its business inflicted by Cairo’s military rulers, a step likely to worsen Qatari-Egyptian relations.

In a move aimed at drawing attention to what Al Jazeera calls Egypt’s unacceptable treatment of it and its journalists, a lawyer acting for the pan-Arab channel told Reuters he had handed a legal document detailing the claim to a representative of the Egyptian government.

Egypt had begun a “sustained campaign” against Al Jazeera and its journalists after the army toppled Islamist President Mohamed Morsi in July last year, said Cameron Doley, a lawyer at London law firm Carter-Ruck, which is handling the case.

“Al Jazeera invested substantial sums in Egypt,” said Doley. “The effect of this recent campaign by the military government is that this investment has been expropriated. Egypt is bound by international law to pay Al Jazeera just and effective compensation.”

Cairo had six months to settle the claim, filed in the context of a bilateral investment treaty, he said, or face an international tribunal. There was no immediate comment from the Egyptian authorities.

Qatar, a Gulf Arab monarchy that funds Al Jazeera, backs Morsi’s deposed Muslim Brotherhood, which Cairo has declared a “terrorist” group. Qatari ties with Egypt have been strained since the army ousted Morsi after mass unrest against his rule.

Three Al Jazeera journalists are being tried in Egypt on charges of aiding members of a “terrorist organisation”, in a case that human rights groups say shows the authorities are trampling on freedom of expression.

All three deny the charges and Al Jazeera has said the accusations are absurd. Egyptian officials have said the case is not linked to freedom of expression and that the journalists raised suspicions by operating without proper accreditation.

The trio — Peter Greste, an Australian, Mohamed Fahmy, a Canadian-Egyptian national, and Baher Mohamed, an Egyptian — were detained in Cairo on December 29.

Earlier this year, an Egyptian prosecutor said Al Jazeera journalists had published lies harming the national interest and had supplied money, equipment and information to 16 Egyptians. The foreigners were also accused of using unlicensed broadcasting equipment.

Both state and private Egyptian media have fanned anti-Brotherhood sentiment, suggesting anyone associated with the veteran movement is a traitor and threat to national security.

Egyptians often ask journalists in the streets whether they work for Al Jazeera. Saying yes could mean a beating.

The Brotherhood renounced violence as a means of political change decades ago and says it remains committed to peaceful activism, denying any association with the surge in Islamist insurgent violence since Morsi’s downfall.

The crackdown on dissent has raised questions about Egypt’s democratic credentials three years after an uprising toppled veteran autocratic president Hosni Mubarak and raised hopes of greater freedoms. Morsi won power in a free election in 2012.

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — Israel’s state prosecution is seeking a jail term of five to seven years for former premier Ehud Olmert who was convicted in March of bribery, a judical source said Monday.

Olmert was convicted on March 31 on two counts of receiving bribes in connection with a sprawling Jerusalem property development, in one of the biggest corruption scandals in Israeli history.

“The state is intending to seek five to seven years of prison time for Ehud Olmert for the first count and between two and four years for the second,” a source at the justice ministry told AFP after sentencing deliberations got under way at Tel Aviv District Court.

Press reports said the prosecution was also seeking to fine Olmert 1.2 million shekels ($345,000/250,000 euros).

The 68-year-old has vowed to appeal.

The sentencing process which began on Monday is likely to last several weeks, legal sources said.