Israel AG to indict Prime Minister
ISRAEL: Israel's attorney general notified Prime Minister Ehud Olmert
on Sunday that he plans to indict him on suspicion he illicitly took
cash-stuffed envelopes from a Jewish-American businessman - a
sensational case that gripped the country and turned public opinion so
sharply against the Israeli leader that he was forced to resign.
Before any final decision on an indictment is made, Olmert will be
offered a last chance to try to persuade Attorney General Meni Mazuz not
to charge him, Mazuz said in a news release. The attorney general is
already considering bringing Olmert to trial in a second corruption
case.
Five corruption cases are pending against Olmert in all, and he has
denied wrongdoing in every one. His spokesman Amir Dan predicted Sunday
that the charges against the prime minister would "disappear in the
end."
All the cases predate his becoming prime minister in January 2006,
when he was mayor of Jerusalem and minister of industry and trade.
Jerusalem, Monday, AP |