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Ariel Schalit / Pool via AFP - Getty Images
Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert speaks to the press at the District Court in Jerusalem on Tuesday after being found guilty on one count of corruption and acquitted on two other counts.
JERUSALEM - Ehud Olmert was found guilty on Tuesday of a corruption charge in the first criminal trial of a former Israeli prime minister, but acquitted on two other counts in what was widely seen as a significant victory for him.
Although Olmert was convicted of fraud and breach of trust, he was found not guilty on more serious charges that included allegations he received cash bribes from a U.S. businessman and double-billed Israeli charities for overseas fund-raising trips.
Olmert appeared claim and relieved as the verdict was delivered in the Jerusalem court.
It was not clear whether that verdict could send Olmert, 66, to jail. If the crime -- breach of trust -- does carry a prison term, he would become the first Israeli prime minister to serve time.
Olmert was accused of taking some $150,000 from the U.S. businessman, pocketing more than $92,000 by double-billing the charities and helping to advance the business interests of a long-time friend.
He denied any wrongdoing. The court convicted him only in connection with aiding his friend while serving as minister of trade and industry before becoming prime minister in 2006.
Israel's Haaretz newspaper described the verdict on its website as a "crushing defeat" for the prosecution. The popular Ynet news site, called the outcome a "legal earthquake," confounding widespread expectations of a triple conviction.
The former prime minister is also battling, in a separate case, charges over the construction of a hulking luxury apartment complex that dominates a Jerusalem hilltop.
Envelopes of cash
The U.S. businessman, Morris Talansky, testified that he gave Olmert envelopes containing hundreds of thousands of dollars. Olmert says the money was used for electioneering, denying he benefited personally in return for advancing the businessman's interests.
The court said prosecutors had failed to prove the payments were illegal.
Olmert resigned as prime minister in September 2008 after the accusations surfaced, saying he wanted to clear his name. But he stayed on as caretaker until March 2009 when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government was sworn in.
Former Israeli PM Olmert joins chorus criticizing Netanyahu on Iran
Olmert claimed he had achieved significant progress in talks with the Palestinians aimed at securing a final Middle East peace deal, offering an Israeli withdrawal from much of the occupied West Bank.
But no agreement was reached and negotiations held under Netanyahu collapsed in 2010 in a dispute over Israeli settlement building on land Palestinians want for a state.
Prosecutors said millions of dollars in bribes were paid to Olmert, Jerusalem's mayor from 1993 to 2003, and other civil servants to ensure the approval of plans for the Holyland towers. Olmert has denied this.
Corruption trial begins for Israel's ex-leader
Israel has already witnessed a former head of state put behind bars.
Former president Moshe Katsav was convicted last year of raping an aide when he was a cabinet minister in the late 1990s and molesting or sexually harassing two other women who worked for him during his 2000-2007 term as president. He began serving a seven-year prison sentence in December.
Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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Leave a Comment:
If we started criminal procecutions for Corruption, here in America, I think we wouldn't need term limits...but we probably would need to have elections every year for a while
All I can say is "Yeah Right" ...... plain and simple ... a crook!!!!!!!!! But so was the former prime minister!
It's so hard to air that dirty linen in public ............... our friends!
Oh boy ! I'll bet a whole bunch of neo-Nazi Taliban supporters will be warming up their ovens for this one.
You sure nailed that one, Woodshed. Look at the responses below. Any story that is unfavorable to any Israeli will bring the roaches scurrying out of the woodwork like dropping honey on the floor.
See how MSNBC allows pro-zionists and zionists to post any level of insult and personal attack and not be disciplined. While objective posters that sneeze too loudly are open to censor.
MSNBC favors EVERYTHING zionist including criminality, theft, murder, war crimes and oppression.
If MSNBC was so zionist, we would hear a little more about the crimes of the Arab terrorists, most of which are far worce than anything Israel has ever been accused of (even most of the unjust accusations).
Wonder how a non-pro-zionist news agency describes these events.
Olmert did an excellent job, from the conquering zionist point of view, in stalling, stalling, stalling a just and lasting peace resolution with the Palestinians.
He committed war crimes in his attack upon Gaza - well received by zionists.
He invaded and razed Lebanon in a stand-down false flag attack in 2006. If this invasion wasnt botched conquering zionists would have cheered and danced in the street at this. I always wondered if the criminal charges were really a backdoor method of punishing him for the 2006 failed invasion. Many military leaders bocked at his treacherous use of his soldiers, allowing a border kidnapping which resulted in the death of several IDF soldiers.
J.P another newsviner who sees everythiig upside down.The Arabs blew it in 1948 when they refused their own state through partition.although most of the world accepted a Jewish state to reflect that the Jews that wanted to could now return to their historic homeland. Some Jews returned, but it seems there ar more non Zionist Jews are living outside of Israel.The Aarbs decided to not only reject their own state but set out to destroy the new modern state of Israel. 64 year later they can still acquire their own state but they can no longer use the 1948 boundaries.But it seems Israel will negotiate in good fiath and even withdraw from lands which they did with the Sinai and Gaza.Now its more difficult because Gaza is a terrorist camp that wants to destroy Israel. This is both a crime against the peace anda lso crimes aginst humanity.But at least on the West Bank if the Palestinians negotiate without preconditions they can still have a country . Olmert was PM when they came close to a settlement that was very favorable to the Arabs. Arafat,who was a terrorist rejected it.President Clinton.among others will confirm this.You should be writing a letter to Abbas to return to negotiations .Also write a letter to the government of Lebanon to destroy hezbollah which is the main problem along with hamas.. 2 terrorist groups that take orders from Iran. If hamas and hezbollah continue to attack Israe,.they will bring great ruin to both Lebanon and Gaza.Israel, like any country will act forcefully to defends it citizens and territory from aggression which in this case comes from hamas,hezbollah and Iran. Those 3 are the war criminals in the mideast and the whole world.And Israel will continue to defend itself agaist these genocidal beasts.And all your spin can't change the fact of the brutal attacks committed against Israel by the 3 Islamic terrorist groups!
what about israel attack on usa soil 911 to b exact israel is a terrorist nation look it up
Yes, we can look it up in the pile of garbage with all the other idiotic conspiracy theories.
No, Koening. This time i am aware of you and your plans of forced in vitro.
You will be Deutch, continue your script:
Only with orginal, only in Soplicowo:
witkacy
GUILTY on all count as all zionists murderers are. I command all Jews who dissociate themselves from israel and I am glad to see that the numbers are growing. To all please, do not associate Judaism with zionism.
Now hold on??? He is being prosecuted for accept money from a businessman? All of israhell should prosecuted then with the $3.5 billion we "gift" them from our taxes. Now to the point, we need our money to stay here in the US and help us Americans and we need to stop supporting this criminal regime. Our support to israel is only going to get us in more trouble, plus we say we are for peace and on the other hand we support murderers such as israel. Double standard? Hypocrisy? Loss of credibility? However you want to call it...
Agreed Sam, the man is a crook like most politicians these days, he accepted envelopes of cash and swore that not a dime was for personal use among other indiscretions...c'mon. Of course if you disagree with the verdict you will be labeled an anti-semite, as for our undying support and large cash donations for Israel (and zillions of other countries) I always wondered what do we get in return?
Harle, some people DO agree with the verdict...as a sign that Israel is fighting corruption much more aggressively than we are doing here. But others are using it as a jumping-off point for knee-jerk anti-zionism. And if you stick around, some of that anti-zionism will turn into real Jew baiting as well. It has happened on every other thread that involves Israel in any way...to the point where, if Israeli doctors found a cure for cancer, some posters would attack them for taking American doctors' jobs away while others would blame all of the Jews for not finding the cure sooner.
If I was you I would ignore the Jew Baiters, do you think that you will change their minds? Yes, Jews, Blacks, Latinos, Muslims, Catholics, etc are picked on. As a black American I read racists posts all the time have given up trying to be reasonable with them and pity some of them, I have friends and associates of all races and we argue and kid with eachother it's just that sometimes people like Woodshed IMMEDIATELY assume that there will be an outpouring of Jewish hate associated with the article. Us minorities have to learn to become thicker skinned and look for the positives and acknowledge but ignore the negatives. Just because someone disagrees with you doesn't mean that they are against you.
Sam you join J.P as a mucker up of Newsvine.You engage in BIG LIES that seem to come out of a George Orwell manual of mis information. Olmert had his day in court and it ws a mixed verdict. The charges were of an internal matter for Israel.Using it to show how" Zionist murderers" are is so ridiculous ..that YES..you seem to be an obsessive anti Semite .If the shoe fits wear it!
"crushing defeat" for the prosecution - The knife never cuts its own handle - old Persian proverb.
Surely not! This can't be true! A corrupt Israeli? Never! :D:D:D
As for those crying about Jew-baiting, ask Bernie Madoff about corruption.
Aren't we lucky that there are no corrupt gentiles (sarcasm). And as for Bernie Madoff, his victims were Jewish, too.
Cassadra, you have to stop feeding into the madness. I know it's hard but you are not going to change anyones views, some people have valid points whether negative or positive and we all have garbage and dirt within our communities that we should be addressing. You sound like a good passionate person like myself who wished they could see our points of view but they won't.
Harle, I can't even understand some of the anti-black statements...most notably, that blacks enjoy fried chicken and watermelon. Who doesn't? I try to answer those absurd attacks, too.
I make the best Fried Chicken in the world but HATE Watermelon, I guess I'm not 100% black. Some of the ignorance steams me but we have to realize that everyone is allowed to make their points on these posts no matter how negative, it is up to us to ignore the really bad ones and not add fuel to their hatred. Take Care.
Cassandra Did you get the signed letter from Olmert for $300 when he was the mayor of Jerusalem , these Christians Conservatives were raising money for Israel by him sending these signed letters , these people are bunch of Crooks you got me Cassandra Crooks , and Just because he is an Israeli's does not make him holy , you all need to get over this chosen ones BS .
That SOB is the biggest example of why US is infested with crooks.
One madoff a-hole could not have succeded without help/sympathy from other jews...
Can you imagine, this SOB was reported to SEC (Which, btw, full of jews), SEC did an investigation..
How they did it? Two morons asked madoff, "How you make good money in investments where the economy is going bust?". he says. "I am good". And SEC closes the file....
If SEC checked one Monthly statement showing "Trades", there were none, the whole thing would have been uncovered way long time ago before reaching 60 billion.....
You know what SEC does? They put surveliannce on a indian guy named Raj for two years, thousands of hours, and uncover losses of 6 million, mostly insider trading....
Go figure....
It may be genetic disorder or something..
It is isreal's in best interest US is stationed somewhere in mideast for some reason. US jew lobby pushes for wars we do not need to get into..
personally, I did not care about saddam or anybody in iraq. Somehow, rumsfeld and the jewy congress created WMD non-sense and there we went..
5,000 lives lost, all of them country boys from the heartland...We had to fight some crazy mullahs and all sorts of suicidal muslim fanatics for what? Just so that isrealis feel comfy that US is around...
My guess is that 90% of arabs are pissed off at US simply because we support the isrealis who slave the palestinians in their own land.
We are not even talking about 2-3 trillions cost to US economy...
Now, isreal wants us to get into a fight with iran, so that isreal does not need to fight and lose soldiers..
I bet , we are now sending billions of worth weapons to isreal for their so called iron dome.. where we have 25 million people unemployed and we are trying tou cut medicare... So that we send even more weapons and money to freaking isreal
Israel is not asking US to do the fighting, they made it loud and clear that if needed, they can fight Iran on their own, and they would win too.
As for 90% of arabs, if they were so conserned for palestinians, they would treat them better in their own countries, they are pissed at US because their leaders need someon to blame for everything that goes wrong, and US is fit for that role, they would keep blaming everythign on US, even if US did not support Israel.
Yeah, its a possiblity.. Its as likely as Candy Crowley becomes a ballerina..
Obviously, perjury in Israeli courts is acceptable. They always have show trials for politicians and soldiers and they all walk free.
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***********************************Tear down the Israeli APARTHEID WALL !!***************************************
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Sorry, the wall stays, your friends will have to look for some other ways to carry out suicidal bombings, or they might consider the unthinkable and negotiate for peace.
Why is it that its almost always an isreali or jew involved whenever there is a fraud, ponzi scheme or similar scam?
Even the PM cannot resist..
Abdallah, the name "Ponzi" is Italian and the man who invented the Ponzi scheme was, too. This does not reflect badly on all Italians...any more than your ravings reflect badly on all Jews.
cass,
italian inveented it but jews perfected it....
Likewise, why is it always a Muslim that throws acid in the face of a little girl? Or straps a bomb to a child? Fail.
Oh ab ab. the most corrupt countres in the world are Muslim and Arab countries along with India which is Hindu.and almost all Of Latin America which is Catholic. Israel and Jews in general also have corruption.but at least Israel tries to weed it out. So much for your absurd and ridiculous statement! And I gave you an approval by mistake. You still have zero!
Oh what a surprise! Cleared of charges and guilty of corruption, the entire Knesset should be scrutinized too
Well, Sparrow, I don't think that our Congress would want to look too closely on corruption charges anywhere else.
Oh, and My Turn...I am always getting messages from "Michelle Obama" asking me for contributions. I hope you do not think that this makes our First Lady a crook.
All charges? I thought it said only "most charges", some charges stuck nicely.
Well Cassandra the way I look at it , All politicians and their wifes and their associates are Crooks if they do not work for the good of our country , no body excluded , Dems , Repub , they are all in the same boat .
Politicians are the same all over the world. They lie and cheat when they are in office. Did anyone really think that this guy and others would ever go to jail?. Government officials in all parts of the world have a get out of trouble card.
Another politician who will have to be buried with a corkscrew when he dies because he is so crooked. Hey, I just came up with an entrepreneurial business idea for putting our own American politicians in their final resting places. Can anyone out there supply a sort of post hole digger big enough for human remains to be poured into?
friends in high places
Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for justice's sake, for they shall be satisfied.
Wow, I guess the proof reader for MSNBC must have taken the day off. There are more spelling and grammatical errors in this article than a 3rd grade book report.