Israel foreign minister faces charges

Israeli police said on Monday they had recommended charging Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman with violating public trust in a case involving an alleged information leak.

Lieberman heads a far-right party that forms the second largest faction in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's ruling coalition.

"Police have recommended charging Lieberman for violation of trust," regarding the alleged transfer of information to him by another government official, Micky Rosenfeld, a police spokesman, said.

Charges have also been recommended against a former Israeli ambassador to Belarus regarding the same case, Rosenfeld said.

It would be up to Israel's attorney-general, Yehuda Weinstein, to decide as to whether to indict Lieberman, against whom a previous police recommendation for charges in a separate incident, still stands.

Innocent
Lieberman has said in the past he was innocent and would quit if he were to be indicted, but declined any immediate comment on the latest police decision.

A source close to him dismissed the reports, saying: "Past experience with the hasty recommendations of the police speaks for itself, and there is no reason to get excited."

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Last year police said Lieberman ought to be charged with bribery, money laundering and obstruction of justice after a separate investigation.

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But the attorney-general's office changed hands shortly afterwards before any decision was reached.

The Moldovan-born Lieberman, head of the Yisrael Beitenu party, is the latest of a series of Israeli public figures to face a police probe in the last few years.

Former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is on trial for corruption charges after an investigation that forced his resignation in 2008. Olmert has said he was innocent of any wrongdoing.