The son of former Israeli premier Ariel Sharon began a seven-month prison sentence on Wednesday for corruption and fraud in connection with his father’s Likud party leadership bid. Omri Sharon, a 43-year-old former MP, was taken from Tel Aviv district court in a prison van to a jail in the centre of the country, just a day after his coma- stricken father turned 80.

Sharon was sentenced to jail and fined $81,000 in 2006 after he was found guilty of fraud during his father’s 1999 campaign for the leadership of the right-wing Likud.