The former prime minister of Israel, Ehud Olmert, has been sentenced to six years in prison for taking bribes from housing developers while he was mayor of Jerusalem.
Granting the sentence requested by prosecutors, Judge David Rozen labelled Olmert and nine others traitors who “harmed the public trust”, but reserved his harshest criticism for the former PM who, he said, deserved the harshest punishment because he is a public figure and an intelligent man.
Olmert was found guilty six weeks after a drawn-out investigation into the planning process surrounding Holyland, a large and largely disliked apartment complex in southern Jerusalem. In 2010, a judge referred to the probe as “one of the worst corruption affairs in Israeli history.”
Olmert, who is 68 and was prime minister from 2006 to 2009, released a statement before sentencing, calling the event “a sad day, on which a severe and unjust verdict is to be handed down to an innocent man.”
After having been found guilty in March, Olmert told Judge Rozen: “I never asked for and never received a bribe, neither directly nor indirectly, for myself, my associates or my family.” Olmert, who served as Jerusalem’s mayor from 1993 to 2003, added: “Naturally, the right way for me to appeal the court’s decision is to appeal to the Supreme Court (…) I believe the Supreme Court will make the effort to see the whole picture — that I never got a bribe from anyone. That is the truth.”
But Judge Rozen, in issuing a searing 700-page verdict on March 31, said that Mr. Olmert “told lies in court” and that his version of events “has been rejected by me in every way.” The judge found that half a million shekels — about £86,000 today — had been funnelled in a series of post-dated cheques from a financier hired to ease Holyland’s path through the city planning process to Olmert’s brother, Yossi.
During sentencing on Tuesday, Olmert was ordered to pay restitution plus a fine of nearly £180,000.
“Olmert got huge sums and it does not matter if it went to his brother or his pocket,” Judge Rozen said. “The time that has passed since the crimes is not a reason for leniency.”
