An Israeli businessman, David Appel, has been charged with offering a bribe to Ariel Sharon at the end of the 1990s when he was foreign minister.
The indictment served in a Tel Aviv magistrates' court did not say if Mr Sharon, whose political future has been clouded by the affair, had accepted the bribe.
According to the charge sheet, Mr Appel also tried to bribe both Sharon's son Gilad and deputy prime minister Ehud Olmert, who was mayor of Jerusalem at the time.
The indictment said Sharon knew that Gilad, his younger son, could 'help his relationship with David Appel'.
The so-called 'Greek island affair' took place in the late 1990s when Sharon was foreign minister in the government of Benjamin Netanyahu.
At the time, Mr Appel, a key figure behind the scenes in the Likud party, was planning a huge tourism project on a Greek island for which he needed authorisation from the Greek authorities.
It is alleged he tried to secure the help of Mr Sharon and Mr Olmert, both of whom were candidates for the Likud leadership, in exchange for financing their respective campaigns.
