ARIEL SHARON was taken to hospital last night after suffering a “significant stroke”, officials said. The Israeli Prime Minister had been unwell after suffering a mild stroke last month.

Mr Sharon’s office said that he had been taken by ambulance from his ranch in the Negev desert to the Hadassah Hospital, Jerusalem, where he had already been due to undergo a heart procedure today. He was said to be fully conscious and was accompanied by his personal doctor.

Mr Sharon, 77, was treated at the same hospital after the first stroke on December 18. Doctors then said that he would not suffer long-term effects, but they discovered a birth defect in his heart that apparently contributed to it.

He was due back at the hospital today for the defect to be corrected by a procedure known as cardiac catheterisation. He is overweight, but last month doctors found that he was otherwise in good health.

Before it was confirmed that he had had a second stroke, Israel’s Channel 10 News quoted Mr Sharon’s spokesman as saying that the symptoms were not severe. At that time it was thought that his condition was not life-threatening.

Since the stroke last month, Mr Sharon has been on blood thinners to try to prevent a recurrence.

In the scheduled operation, doctors planned to use a catheter to plant a patch on the hole in his heart. Mr Sharon had been expected to turn over his authority to Ehud Olmert, the Deputy Prime Minister, for about three hours, while he was under general anesthetic and recovering. It would have been the first time an Israel prime minister had relinquished authority because of illness.

Mr Sharon was taken ill shortly after fresh details emerged from a corruption investigation that has dogged him for six years. The Israeli media reported that police had seized a laptop computer and documents belonging to James Schlaff, an Austrian businessman, but had been refused permission by a court to examine files on the computer.

Police have for years been trying to trace the source of foreign funds that they suspect Mr Sharon’s family used to repay illegal contributions to his campaign in 1999 when he was running to become leader of the Likud party.

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