He risked it all,” he said, making oblique reference to the culture of ?tism that for so long reigned in the hallways of both auction firms.Nor did efforts by Mr Taubman’s lawyers to emphasise his philanthropy over the years help his case. Prosecutors responded that while he had indeed been generous to charitable causes, it was not surprising given that he is worth an estimated $640m.Mr Taubman, who suffers from heart disease, hypertension and renal failure, made his fortune originally building shopping centres in the midwest of the United States. He sought to become chairman of Sotheby’s in part because of the effect it would have on his social status.. International pressure on Israel to explain its army’s conduct during the invasion of Jenin’s refugee camp grew yesterday after Amnesty International accused it of “very serious human rights abuses”, and called for a war crimes investigation. We believe Israel has a case to answer.”Kofi Annan, United Nations secretary general, has named a three-member fact-finding team led by the ex-Finnish president Martti Ahtisaari to determine what happened during Israel’s assault on the Jenin camp in the West Bank.

That matches accounts gathered by The Independent.The offensive began on 2 April and led to days of intense fighting in which 23 Israeli soldiers were killed and an unknown number of Palestinians. More than 40 bodies have been recovered from the scene, including at least three women, a 10-year-old and an elderly man.A 12-person British search and rescue team of disaster specialists, Rapid UK, pulled four more unidentifiable bodies out of the rubble but said it doubted there were more. It is due to leave today, after 48 hours A large number of people are still searching for their loved ones, prompting Palestinian suspicions that bodies were removed elsewhere during the six days the army banned aid agencies and the media from the area.Amnesty said it had testimony that old people and children were caught up in the fighting and given no chance to flee – a claim disputed by the Israeli army, which says it did everything possible to protect civilian lives after its forces entered the camp, home to 13,000 people.Amnesty said it found no evidence of mass graves – an allegation made by Palestinians – but there were reports of the use of civilians as human shields.It dismissed Israel’s claims that the Palestinians killed in Jenin were mostly fighters. This was “simply not true”, said Professor Derrick Pounder, a forensic medicine specialist from Dundee University, “In Jenin, there have certainly been mass killings – both combatants and civilians.”Smarting from the international backlash, Israel has trained its ire on Terje Roed-Larsen, the UN’s Middle East envoy who enfuriated Ariel Sharon and his ministers by describing the scene at Jenin as “horrifying beyond belief” and a “blot on the history of the state of Israel”.He has been engulfed by a tide of condemnation from the highest levels of government, including calls for him to be made persona non grata. One member of Mr Sharon’s government denounced him as “a racist, an anti-Semite and an apparent criminal”. Mr Larsen said he stood by his words.Attention will now focus on the fact-finding team Its inquiries will include trying to establish why the Israeli army refused to allow ambulances to enter the devastated area..

Smoke, gunfire and the thud of sound grenades engulfed the area around the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem yesterday, prompting speculation that the three-week siege was heading towards a close. On past occasions, the army has done this to bombard the church with leaflets, demanding surrender. On Sunday, five of the besieged Palestinians used the ladders to leave, and give themselves up to the waiting soldiers.Canon Andrew White, the Archbishop of Canterbury’s envoy, said conditions inside the church were deteriorating. “There is no food, the sanitary conditions are terrible and some of the people are sick or wounded,” he said. There are known to be two corpses inside, both Palestinians.The Franciscan Order, which has three dozen monks and nuns inside the building, has expressed dismay over the Israeli army’s decision to cut telephone lines connecting the church with an adjacent compound. At a meeting with the Israeli ambassador to the Holy See, the Order said there was “grave danger in losing all contact …