Former Israeli PM goes home for trial period

FORMER Israeli premier Ariel Sharon was taken yesterday from the hospital bed where he has been lying in a coma for nearly five years, for a trial period at home, a hospital official said.

An intensive care ambulance carried the ex-premier to his Sycamore Farm home in southern Israel.

Shlomo Noy, head of the rehabilitation unit at Sheba Hospital, near Tel Aviv, said that Sharon, 82, was expected to return to the hospital tomorrow. The exercise will be repeated to see if he can be treated at home permanently.