Formerly captive Israeli officer stripped of rank

[Scurrilous]

<snip>

"An Israeli military tribunal demoted to private on Monday a former reserve army colonel who was held captive by Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon for four years after he was lured to the Gulf on a drugs deal.

Elhanan Tannenbaum, now a taxi driver, was stripped of his rank after military jurists decided he had been guilty of moral turpitude, military officials said.

Tannenbaum, a Tel Aviv businessman and a reserve colonel in the artillery corps, wound up a Hezbollah prisoner in 2000 after travelling to a Gulf state for what he later acknowledged was a drugs deal to cover gambling debts.

He was released in 2004 in a prisoner swap in which Israel freed 400 Palestinians and 29 other Arabs. Hezbollah also returned the bodies of three Israeli soldiers it killed in a border ambush in 2000."

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L25577826.htm


Sharon rejects hostage link claim (3 March, 2004)

<snip>

"The Israeli prime minister has denied acting improperly to secure the release of a hostage amid reports he had business links with the man's family.

Maariv newspaper said Ariel Sharon had employed the father-in-law of the former hostage, Elhanan Tannenbaum, to manage his farm in the 1970s."

<snip>

"According to Maariv, Mr Sharon hired Shimon Cohen to run his farm after Mr Sharon was appointed Minister of Agriculture in 1977.

Mr Cohen's daughter, Esther, was married to Mr Tannenbaum. The couple have since separated."

<snip>

"Many Israelis questioned why Mr Sharon made such a determined effort to secure the release of Mr Tannenbaum, who has admitted trying to conduct an illicit business deal with Hezbollah.

"It is difficult even today to understand what prompted the prime minister to fight so hard for him," Maariv quoted a military source as saying."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3529121.stm