Olmert found guilty in corruption case

OCCUPIED-AL-QUDS: An al-Quds court found former Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert guilty of corruption on Monday over allegations that he received envelopes of cash from a US businessman, Israeli media reported.
It was the latest legal blow in a humiliating fall from grace for the debonair man who took over as premier in 2006 after his mentor and predecessor Ariel Sharon lapsed into a coma from which he never recovered.
The 69-year-old, who already faces a six-year prison sentence in a separate bribery case that he has appealed to the supreme court, will be sentenced on May 5, the reports said.
Olmert has always insisted on his innocence, describing the allegations against him as “a brutal, ruthless witch-hunt” and his lawyers said he would appeal the latest conviction.
He had initially been acquitted of fraud and corruption in the case, escaping with a $19,000 fine and a suspended jail sentence for breach of trust in 2012.
But new evidence came to light during his trial in the other corruption case and prosecutors again pressed the two more serious charges.
In return for a reduction in sentence, his former secretary and confidante Shula Zaken revealed that secret tape recordings existed of conversations between her and Olmert about the tens of thousands of dollars that he was alleged to have received from businessman Morris Talansky while trade and industry minister in the early 2000s.
The six-year prison sentence handed down against Olmert in May last year was the first ever against a former Israeli premier for corruption.
After a two-year trial, he was convicted of taking bribes to the tune of 560,000 shekels (now $140,000/129,000 euros) while mayor of Jerusalem between 1993 and 2003 from the developers of the city’s massive Holyland residential complex.