Israeli police recommend indicting Olmert

ISRAEL: THE POLICE yesterday recommended that Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert be indicted on charges of bribery and fraud in two separate corruption cases that have forced the Israeli leader to announce he will step down later this month.

In one case, Mr Olmert is alleged to have received hundreds of thousands of dollars from an American-Jewish businessman over a 15-year period before he became prime minister. In the second case, which also relates to a period before he became prime minister, Mr Olmert allegedly double-billed charity organisations that had sent him abroad to do work for them.

The final decision on whether to indict Mr Olmert lies with attorney general Menachem Mazuz, and it could still take several months until he rules on the matter. Police are yet to submit their recommendations in a third corruption scandal involving Mr Olmert.

Dogged by allegations of corruption during his 28-month term, the prime minister announced in late July that he would step down after his ruling Kadima party had chosen a new leader in a primary to be held on September 17th. Whoever replaces Mr Olmert will try and set up a new government.

Should they fail, the country will head for a general election early next year.

In late May, US businessman Morris Talansky told a Jerusalem court that he had given Mr Olmert about $150,000 dollars, some of it in cash-stuffed envelopes, to cover, among other things, personal expenses such as family holidays, expensive hotels and cigars. The prime minister denied the allegations and insisted he would only step down if indicted.

Pre-empting the police decision, an aide to Mr Olmert said on Saturday that the police "have no choice but to recommend an indictment, since they have to justify the fact that they brought down a prime minister in office".

At yesterday's cabinet meeting, Mr Olmert initiated discussion around legislation that would offer government compensation to West Bank settlers who are willing to leave their homes ahead of a peace deal with the Palestinians. There are currently 270,000 settlers living in the West Bank, but Israel hopes that in a final deal it can hold onto large settlement blocs that include some 75 per cent of the settler population.

While the "compensation-evacuation" proposal is still far from being implemented, it is aimed at reducing the number of Jewish settlers the government would have to evacuate in the event of a statehood deal with the Palestinians, which could lessen the domestic political fallout over a mass settler evacuation.

This article appears in the print edition of the Irish Times