Former Israeli Leader Is Convicted of Taking Bribes
Ehud Olmert, the former Israeli prime minister who was forced from office under a corruption cloud, was convicted Monday of taking bribes to ease the construction of a huge housing complex while he was mayor of Jerusalem, dashing his much-discussed dream of making a political comeback.
The verdict was the most severe ever against such a senior official. In 2012, Mr. Olmert became Israel’s first prime minister to be convicted of a criminal offense when he was found guilty of breach of trust in a separate case. But he escaped jail time then and had been plotting another run for office in hopes of acquittal in the bribery case relating to the Holyland complex in southwestern Jerusalem.
Judge David Rosen of Tel Aviv District Court declared on Monday that Mr. Olmert had “told lies in court” and said that his version of events “has been rejected by me in every way.” In a hearing stretching for nearly two hours and covered live on television, Judge Rosen decried “a corrupt political system that has decayed over the years” and said “hundreds of thousands of shekels were transferred to elected officials.”
An April 28 hearing was set to discuss sentencing. Legal experts said Mr. Olmert was sure to be sentenced to time in prison, with the maximum for his crimes set at seven years.
Mr. Olmert, 68, served as prime minister from 2006 to 2009, leading a war in Lebanon widely condemned as a debacle, and bringing Israel to the brink of a peace deal with the Palestinians, until a swirl of corruption charges led to his resignation. He had been mayor of Jerusalem from 1993 to 2003 and later oversaw the Israel Lands Authority, as the Holyland complex swelled to more than 12 times the height granted in the original permits.
Originally a member of the right-wing Likud Party, he left to help Prime Minister Ariel Sharon create the centrist party Kadima in 2005, and succeeded Mr. Sharon the following year after Mr. Sharon suffered a debilitating stroke. Over the past two years, Mr. Olmert has been among the harshest critics of the current prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, particularly his handling of peace talks with the Palestinians, and has spoken frequently in the United States.
When the Holyland case was first made public in 2010, a judge called it “one of the worst corruption affairs in Israeli history.” On Monday, 10 of 13 former government officials and businesspeople charged in the case were convicted on various charges and Mr. Olmert was found guilty of two of the four counts against him. Mr. Olmert, and all those convicted, cannot leave the country.
“The court said in a loud, clear voice: enough of public corruption,” Yoni Tadmor, a member of the prosecution team, said afterward on Israel Radio. “Today Judge Rosen has determined that we are not talking about a fantasy, but of shocking and hair-raising conduct.”
At the hearing’s close, Israel Radio reported, Mr. Olmert left by a side door with a “harsh look” on his face.
“It is not an easy day for us and not an easy day for Mr. Olmert,” said one of his lawyers, Roi Blecher. Amir Dan, a spokesman for the former prime minister, said his team would “study well” the 700-page verdict, adding: “Apparently this is not the last word.”
Mr. Olmert had consistently denied all the charges, at one point calling them “an attempt at character assassination unprecedented in scope and force” and declaring: “I was never offered a bribe and have never received a bribe from anybody in any way, either directly or indirectly.”
But Judge Rosen did not agree. He said that half a million shekels — about $143,000 today — was funneled in a series of postdated checks from Shmuel Dechner, a financier hired to obtain city zoning to benefit Holyland, through Mr. Olmert’s brother, Yossi. Mr. Dechner, who died last year, was the key prosecution witness.
The judge “was not willing to accept the idea that a public figure is not aware of what goes on around him,” Moshe Negbi, a legal analyst, said on Israel Radio.
Built on a ridge with interlocking apartment buildings and one outsized tower that dominates the view for miles, Holyland is called by some Jerusalem residents “the monster.” Its developer, Hillel Charney, was among those convicted on Monday, along with Shula Zaken, Mr. Olmert’s chief of staff, whose last-minute deal with prosecutors to testify against her former boss was ignored by the judge.
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