Israel’s attorney general on Wednesday announced his intention to indict the foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, on corruption charges, but said he would allow Mr. Lieberman a hearing to contest an indictment before issuing a formal charge sheet.
Charges against the Israeli foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, involve accusations that while in the private sector he used a company to funnel illicit gifts and contributions.
An aide to Mr. Lieberman said he would accept the hearing, which would probably take months to prepare for and enable him to avoid an immediate resignation from the government. If an indictment is issued after the hearing, Mr. Lieberman will most likely have to resign. Since his party is the second largest in the governing coalition, that could force early elections.
The charges against Mr. Lieberman, which he vigorously denies, have been 15 years in the making and involve accusations that while in the private sector he used a company to funnel illicit gifts and contributions. The expected formal charges are money laundering and fraud.
The attorney general’s announcement came within minutes of a long-scheduled speech by Mr. Lieberman at the quadrennial convention of the party of which he is the chairman, the ultranationalist Yisrael Beiteinu. As a result, Mr. Lieberman took a slight detour from his hard-line political speech to say: “I know and you know that I have always acted in accordance with the law, and there is no reason to worry. After 15 years, I finally will have the opportunity to prove that I act legally.”
He received a sustained standing ovation.
It is far from clear where this case is headed or whether it will politically damage or strengthen Mr. Lieberman, who heads the country’s third largest party and seems to be gaining ground, especially among the young, for policies that concentrate on Arab citizens and left-wing groups he accuses of disloyalty.
Mr. Lieberman has long argued that the judicial system is run by liberals out to get him because of his political strength, and the timing of Wednesday’s announcement was noted at his party’s convention as another example. He has said further that the more the system goes after him, the more popular he will become.
A number of Israeli politicians have faced legal troubles, including a former prime minister, Ehud Olmert; a former president, Moshe Katzav; and a former finance minister, Abraham Hirchson.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a statement of support for Mr. Lieberman, saying that he hoped Mr. Lieberman would prove his innocence and continue his public service. Mr. Netanyahu needs Mr. Lieberman’s party, but tensions between the two have run high in recent months as the foreign minister has publicly differed with a number of government policies.
During the speech to his party faithful, Mr. Lieberman said he was opposed to efforts to restore quiet on the border with Gaza, where tensions were high last weekend with scores of rockets hitting Israel and the Israeli military killing 18 Palestinians, some of them civilians.
An unofficial truce restored the calm. But Mr. Lieberman said that the goal should not be calm, but the overthrow of the Hamas government. He has also ridiculed the notion, once championed by Mr. Netanyahu, that peace with the Palestinians could be negotiated in the course of a year. Mr. Lieberman believes it will be decades before there can be peace.
On Wednesday, he added a new thought as Israel worries about efforts by the Palestinians to obtain international recognition of statehood rather than negotiate with Israel. He said the leaders of the three largest Israeli political parties — Mr. Netanyahu’s Likud, his own and the opposition party Kadima, led by Tzipi Livni — should meet and come up with a plan that the vast majority of the country would support. That way, he said, Israel would not be dictated to.
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