Tag: Development and Peace (political party)

Shmuel Flatto-Sharon, a former businessman who fled to Israel and joined the Knesset to escape a French jail sentence, died early Friday morning. Flatto-Sharon had been hospitalized near Tel Aviv since September with an infection, according to Hebrew-language media reports. Born in Poland in 1930, Flatto-Sharon escaped the Holocaust and eventually became a successful industrialist. Free Sign Up In 1977, with France attempting to have him extradited to serve a jail sentence, Flatto-Sharon started a one-man political party and managed to win a spot in the Knesset, gaining parliamentary immunity. The affair, for which he became famous, is sometimes cited as a reason for higher electoral thresholds in the Knesset. He was unable to enter the Knesset in subsequent tries and was later convicted for buying votes during the 1977 election and sentenced to prison. After leaving politics, Flatto-Sharon continued as a successful businessman and philanthropist in Israel, though legal woes dogged him throughout. In 1992 he asked a court in Tel Aviv to declare him penniless, apparently to escape a $35 million judgement awarded the French Companie Parisienne de Participation, which sued him in Israel. He later settled on a smaller amount with the company. In 2000, he served several months in an Israeli prison for a French graft conviction, according to Ynet.