Ehud Olmert, Israel’s former prime minister, was convicted of bribery in a notorious property development case on Monday in a verdict that effectively ended his political career and left him facing a probable jail sentence.
A judge in a Tel Aviv court found Mr Olmert – Israeli premier from 2006 to 2009 – guilty of accepting bribes totalling £190,000 to help a housing project known as the Holyland while he was mayor of Jerusalem more than a decade ago.
It is the first time a former Israeli leader has been convicted of bribery charges. A sentencing hearing is anticipated next month, with legal experts predicting that Mr Olmert, 68, can expect time in prison.
The charges related to a high-rise development in Jerusalem’s south-side which has turned into an infamous blot on the historic city’s landscape and spawned one of Israel’s highest-profile political corruption probes. Planning and zoning law had to be changed under Mr Olmert’s municipal administration to allow building work to go ahead.
The former prime minister could face further charges of obstruction of justice after it was revealed that he had tried to persuade his former long-standing personal assistant to provide untruthful testimony.
David Rosen, a judge at Tel Aviv district court, delivered a damning verdict on Mr Olmert’s own testimony on Monday, accusing the ex-premier of lying.
“Olmert tried to tarnish the name of the state witness and told lies in court,” Mr Rosen said. “I reject Olmert’s account of events entirely…..We’re talking about corrupt and filthy practices.”
Mr Olmert was convicted of breach of trust in 2012 in an unrelated corruption case, resulting in a £12,300 fine and a suspended jail sentence. He had been acquitted of more serious allegations of multiple charging for overseas trips.
The latest conviction ends any prospects of a political comeback for a man who was a protégé of the late Ariel Sharon, the hard-line former Israeli prime minister who died in January.
After a decade as Jerusalem mayor, Mr Olmert joined Mr Sharon’s Likud-led government in 2003, serving as trade and industry minister. He followed Mr Sharon out of Likud in 2005 when the prime minister left to form the new Kadima party in the wake of his controversial decision to withdraw Israeli settlers and troops from the Gaza Strip.
Mr Olmert became prime minister after Mr Sharon was incapacitated by a massive stroke in January 2006. He formed a new coalition after Kadima emerged as the biggest party in a subsequent general election but announced his resignation as prime minister in 2008 to fight the previous corruption charges, although he stayed on as caretaker until the following year.
While Mr Olmert could not boast a military career like many other Israeli prime ministers, his premiership was marked by two of Israel’s most destructive recent armed conflicts – the 34-day war with Lebanon’s Hizbollah in 2006 and a three-week invasion of Gaza that began in late 2008, resulting in the deaths of up to 1,417 Palestinians and 13 Israelis.
He also held protracted but ultimately fruitless peace negotiations with Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian Authority leader.
