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Yedioth Ahronoth publisher accused of delaying Sharon report

Publisher of the Yedioth Ahronoth daily newspaper Arnon Moses delayed for weeks the publication of many reports on improprieties allegedly performed by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and his son Omri, according to a deposition submitted to court on Tuesday by the former editor of the paper's weekend supplement.

Nir Bachar said in his deposition to the Labor Court that the paper's editor-in-chief Rafi Ginat and Moses acted to delay or edit out probes concerning the power relations between government and prominent business figures, as well as initiated inquiries aimed to slur persons and entities they were personally connected with.

The latest of those alleged incidents concerns the Cyril Kern affair, in which the South-African businessman was said to have given Sharon $3 million, which was allegedly laundered through a shell company established by Sharon's eldest son, Gilad, and Kern.

According to Bachar, Ginat and Moses delayed the publication of a report on Austrian businessman Martin Schlaff, which shed new light on the Kern affair, because to the best of his knowledge "a public figure closely related to the publisher Moses was featured in the report."