BICOM

Israel’s Supreme Court this morning partially upheld an appeal, sentencing former-Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to 18 months imprisonment for bribery, reducing his original 6-year sentence. Olmert becomes the first Israeli premier to be jailed.

Olmert was convicted at the end of March of accepting bribes to smooth over the construction of the large ‘Holyland’ real estate project, during his time as Mayor of Jerusalem from 1993-2003. The presiding judge issued a scathing verdict at the time, saying that the case had “exposed governance that grew more corrupt and rotten over the years.” In April, the state prosecution asked that Olmert be handed a minimum sentence of six years in prison, plus a significant fine, a punishment which the courts duly agreed to.

However, Olmert subsequently launched an appeal against his conviction. His central argument was the unreliability of key testimony by state witness Shmuel Dachner, who died in 2013 before defence lawyers had the opportunity to cross-examine him. The five justices who presided this morning, Salim Joubran, Neal Hendel, Uzi Vogelman, Isaac Amit and Zvi Zilbertal, decided to uphold Olmert’s conviction but to drastically reduce his prison sentence to just 18 months. He is expected to begin serving his sentence on 15 February.

Others convicted in the ‘Holyland’ affair include another former-Jerusalem mayor Uri Lupolianski and Danny Dankner, the former chairman of Israel’s Bank Hapoalim, Israel’s second-biggest bank.

As Prime Minister, Olmert led Israel during the 2006 Second Lebanon War and in 2007 held advanced peace talks with the Palestinian Authority. However, he resigned as Prime Minister in 2008 in order to fight a plethora of charges against him, which he had battled largely successfully until the ‘Holyland’ verdict in March.