Former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert of Israel at a Jerusalem court, where he was convicted on Monday of fraud and breach of trust. Credit Pool photo by Abir Sultan
JERUSALEM — Ehud Olmert, the former Israeli prime minister who was forced from office under a cloud of corruption, was convicted on Monday of fraud and breach of trust in a retrial of a case involving an American businessman, whose sensational testimony in a Jerusalem court in 2008 was instrumental in Mr. Olmert’s downfall.
The American businessman, Morris Talansky, said at the time that he had provided Mr. Olmert with about $150,000 over 13 years, mostly in cash stuffed into envelopes, an assertion Mr. Olmert vehemently denied. Mr. Talansky, known as Moshe, had said that much of the money was earmarked for election campaigns but that some was for Mr. Olmert’s personal expenses.
The prosecution said then that the money had been funneled to Mr. Olmert from 1992, when he first ran for mayor of Jerusalem, to late 2005, when he was minister of industry and trade. He became prime minister in early 2006, and his three-year tenure of that office was dogged by police investigations.
Court documents subsequently said that Mr. Talansky had transferred a total of about $600,000 to Mr. Olmert, including some donations from Mr. Talansky’s relatives.
“The battle against corruption is long and stubborn,†a lawyer for the prosecution, Uri Korb, told reporters outside the courtroom after the verdict on Monday. “It takes a long time, but, at long last, justice prevails.â€
He added, “Seven years after Moshe Talansky’s testimony, the court determined that Olmert certainly got envelopes of money and that his behavior was breach of trust and damaged public trust and is true corruption.â€
Eyal Rosovsky, a lawyer for Mr. Olmert, said the defense team was “very disappointed†with the ruling and would decide whether to appeal after studying the verdict.
Mr. Olmert left the court building without making any statement. He is due to be sentenced in May.
Monday’s conviction in the Jerusalem District Court came a year after Mr. Olmert was convicted of taking bribes in another case involving the construction of a huge housing complex in Jerusalem. A judge sentenced Mr. Olmert to six years in prison in that case, dashing any hopes the former prime minister might have had of a political comeback. The start of that sentence has been postponed pending an appeal.
Mr. Olmert was acquitted in July 2012 of corruption charges in the Talansky case and another case involving travel expenses.
At the time, a panel of three judges ruled unanimously that the evidence did not prove beyond doubt that Mr. Olmert had acted with criminal intent in the Talansky affair. They said that Mr. Talansky was a problematic witness whose testimony proved correct in part while also containing statements that were “incorrect and even false.â€
Mr. Olmert was convicted of breach of trust in a third matter in 2012, but it was the least serious of the charges he faced at the time, and he was not sentenced to prison.
The retrial in the Talansky case came after Shula Zaken, Mr. Olmert’s longtime aide and confidante, turned state witness and testified against him, providing the police with tapes she had made of apparently incriminating conversations she had had with Mr. Olmert.
Eli Zohar, a high-profile lawyer who represented Mr. Olmert in this case and previous ones, told reporters outside the courtroom on Monday that the tape recordings were “selective†and that many parts of the conversations were missing.
When Mr. Talansky testified against Mr. Olmert in 2008, he said, among other things, that the money he gave Mr. Olmert included at least $25,000 meant for a vacation in Italy and almost $5,000 to cover Mr. Olmert’s bill at a Washington hotel because Mr. Olmert’s own credit card was “maxed out.†Mr. Talansky added that some of the money was intended as a loan but was never repaid.
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