Former Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert appeared in a Jerusalem court yesterday for an arraignment hearing on three counts of graft, the first prime minister to face criminal charges.
“It is not an easy day for me; for the past three years I have been the target of an almost inhuman defamation campaign,” Olmert said as he entered the courtroom.
Olmert, who will be 64 next week, was charged last month with three counts of graft. The 61-page indictment includes allegations of “fraud, breach of trust, registering false corporate documents and concealing fraudulent earnings.”
Olmert has insisted on his innocence although he resigned under pressure last September.
“I am innocent, and I am certain the court will clear me of any suspicions,” he told journalists.
All the charges concern actions Olmert allegedly took before he became prime minister in May 2006, first as mayor of Jerusalem and later as trade and industry minister.
He remained in office as caretaker until late March when hardliner Benjamin Netanyahu, elected in February, was sworn in.
Olmert is accused of unlawfully accepting gifts of cash-stuffed envelopes from Jewish-American businessman Morris Talansky and of multiple-billing foreign trips.
He has also been charged with cronyism in relation to an investment center he oversaw when he was minister of trade and industry between 2003 and 2006.
Attorney General Menahem Mazuz dropped three other corruption investigations against Olmert, whom Time magazine named Israel’s most able politician when he became prime minister.
In his final months in office, Olmert was subjected to repeated police interrogations, which prompted a wave of calls for him to step down.
Nevertheless, during that time he oversaw Israel’s 22-day onslaught on the Hamas movement in the Gaza Strip that left 1,400 Palestinians dead and wreaked widespread destruction in the impoverished enclave.
Israel has been dogged by scandals involving public officials in recent years, with three former ministers handed prison sentences and both of the country’s most recent former presidents resigning in disgrace, but Olmert is the first ex-prime minister to face criminal charges.
Last month, police recommended that current Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman be indicted for bribery, money laundering and obstruction of justice.
Former president Moshe Katsav is on trial on several counts of rape, sexual harassment and indecent acts.
And on Sept. 1, ex-Cabinet ministers Avraham Hirshon and Shlomo Benizri went to jail, the former for embezzling one million dollars and the latter for bribery and fraud.
A missing fingertip offers a clue to Mako Nishimura’s criminal past as one of Japan’s few female yakuza, but after clawing her way out of the underworld, she now spends her days helping other retired gangsters reintegrate into society. The multibillion-dollar yakuza organized crime network has long ruled over Japan’s drug rings, illicit gambling dens and sex trade. In the past few years, the empire has started to crumble as members have dwindled and laws targeting mafia are tightened. An intensifying police crackdown has shrunk yakuza forces nationwide, with their numbers dipping below 20,000 last year for the first time since records
CAUSE UNKNOWN: Weather and runway conditions were suitable for flight operations at the time of the accident, and no distress signal was sent, authorities said A cargo aircraft skidded off the runway into the sea at Hong Kong International Airport early yesterday, killing two ground crew in a patrol car, in one of the worst accidents in the airport’s 27-year history. The incident occurred at about 3:50am, when the plane is suspected to have lost control upon landing, veering off the runway and crashing through a fence, the Airport Authority Hong Kong said. The jet hit a security patrol car on the perimeter road outside the runway zone, which then fell into the water, it said in a statement. The four crew members on the plane, which
Indonesia was to sign an agreement to repatriate two British nationals, including a grandmother languishing on death row for drug-related crimes, an Indonesian government source said yesterday. “The practical arrangement will be signed today. The transfer will be done immediately after the technical side of the transfer is agreed,” the source said, identifying Lindsay Sandiford and 35-year-old Shahab Shahabadi as the people being transferred. Sandiford, a grandmother, was sentenced to death on the island of Bali in 2013 after she was convicted of trafficking drugs. Customs officers found cocaine worth an estimated US$2.14 million hidden in a false bottom in Sandiford’s suitcase when
Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and its junior partner yesterday signed a coalition deal, paving the way for Sanae Takaichi to become the nation’s first female prime minister. The 11th-hour agreement with the Japan Innovation Party (JIP) came just a day before the lower house was due to vote on Takaichi’s appointment as the fifth prime minister in as many years. If she wins, she will take office the same day. “I’m very much looking forward to working with you on efforts to make Japan’s economy stronger, and to reshape Japan as a country that can be responsible for future generations,”
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