Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was found guilty on Tuesday of investment fraud but acquitted on two other counts. The decision was announced by a panel of three Jerusalem judges, concluding a trial that has spanned three years.
The charges were filed after Olmert became prime minister in 2006, but stemmed from his time as mayor of Jerusalem and later as a cabinet minister and covered three separate allegations.
The charge of which he was found guilty centred on granting illegal favours to his longtime friend and business partner, Uri Messer, while serving as Israeli trade minister. It became known in Israel as the Investment Centre affair, since Messer had applied to the centre for state grants and other benefits.
Olmert said he accepted the court decision but stressed that he had made a procedural error, rather than committing any deliberate acts of corruption. “I accept the court’s decison and I will learn the lessons of this decision,” he said.
Speaking to members of the press after the verdict, Olmert said that the final result — his acquittal on the two more serious charges brought against him (cthat he received envelopes stuffed with dollars from US supporter Moshe Talansky and that he double-billed for travel charges in what became known as the Rishon Tours affair) — honors the Israeli legal system.
“I don’t want to thank the court for its decision. It is not a personal thing,” Olmert said. “I do want to thank the court for the way it handled the proceedings over the past four years.”