Ex-Israeli PM Ariel Sharon moved home in coma

JERUSALEM // A hospital official says Israel's comatose former prime minister, Ariel Sharon, has been moved home more than four-and-a-half years after he was incapacitated by a series of strokes.

The official, Dr. Shlomo Noi, told Israel Radio that the former leader was moved early Friday by ambulance to the sheep farm his family owns in Israel's south, accompanied by a full medical team.

Sharon remains in a coma.

A politician who was for decades one of Israel's most controversial figures, Sharon found popularity as prime minister between 2001 and 2006, engineering Israel's Gaza pullout in 2005.

After suffering the strokes in early 2006 he was kept in the long-term care unit at Tel Hashomer Hospital outside Tel Aviv until Friday.