The former Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert was indicted on three counts of corruption today, becoming the first ex-premier to face criminal charges, the attorney general's office said. "The attorney general... has decided to press charges against former prime minister Ehud Olmert," the office of Attorney General Menahem Mazuz said in a statement. "The charge sheet was presented today in Jerusalem district court."
The 61-page charge sheet accuses Mr Olmert of "fraud, breach of trust, registering false corporate documents, and concealing fraudulent earnings," related to three of the scandals that dogged him when he was in office. A spokesman at Mazuz's office said that the 63-year-old Mr Olmert becomes the first former prime minister in Israeli history to face criminal charges. There was no immediate comment from Mr Olmert. His personal secretary Shula Zaken was also indicted on several counts, the statement said.
Mr Olmert resigned in September over the corruption allegations but remained in office as caretaker until late March, when the hawkish Likud party head Benjamin Netanyahu was sworn in following February 10 elections. Mr Olmert was indicted for allegedly unlawfully accepting gifts ? including cash-stuffed envelopes ? from the Jewish-American businessman Morris Talansky, and for multiple-billing foreign trips in the so-called Rishon Tours affair.
He has also been charged with cronyism in relation to an investment centre he oversaw when he was minister of trade and industry between 2003 and 2006. All the charges concern alleged actions taken before Mr Olmert became prime minister, when he served as mayor of Jerusalem from 1993 to 2003 and then as minister of trade and industry from 2003 to 2006. Mr Mazuz had previously dropped three other corruption investigations against Olmert, whom Time Magazine named Israel's most able politician when he formally assumed office in May 2006.
The various investigations, involving repeated police interrogations, weighed heavily on Mr Olmert's final months in office, prompting a wave of calls for him to step down. Mr Olmert resigned in September 2008 but served as acting prime minister for another several months as the country held elections. Mr Netanyahu was sworn in at the head of a new right wing government on March 31. *AFP
