Attorney-General to probe Olmert allegations Barak took bribes

Attorney-General Yehuda Weinstein instructed the police on Monday to open an investigation into allegations by disgraced former Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert that another former prime minister, Ehud Barak, pocketed tens of millions of dollars in bribes, skimmed off Israeli arms sales.

Olmert’s allegations surfaced in a tape recording broadcast on Israeli television on Friday night.

Olmert, who is currently on trial in the latest of a series of corruption cases against him, made the claim in a July 2011 conversation with his top aide, Shula Zaken, who has since turned state’s witness against him. Zaken secretly recorded numerous conversations with Olmert, and they have been leaking out in recent days — some of them heard in court, and others broadcast on TV.

Barak immediately issued a firm denial of the accusation.

In the conversation, recorded when Barak was still serving as Israel’s defense minister three years ago, Olmert calls Barak “a lunatic,” says Barak was “jealous” of the luxury Audi car he used to have, and then makes the bribery allegation.

Barak “will wind up in jail,” Olmert tells Zaken in the conversation, broadcast by Channel 10 news. “You mark my words, Shula.”

Barak, Olmert continues, “took millions, tens of millions of dollars in bribes. There was no arms deal done by Israel [that was not affected]. Everybody is talking about it.” Olmert implies that an unnamed Mossad chief confirmed this to him.

“Where’s the money?” Zaken asks.

“He hides it,” says Olmert, “in Switzerland or somewhere.” The funds are transferred by Barak’s lawyers to companies overseas “where Barak’s name isn’t mentioned.”

Olmert added that Barak’s main accomplice was his brother-in-law, attorney Doron Cohen, who arranged the deals and handled the money, secretly transferring the funds.

Barak, who also served as defense minister during part of Olmert’s 2006-9 term as prime minister, was a key figure in pushing Olmert to resign the premiership as corruption allegations swirled around him.

Barak, who has since retired from politics, issued a statement Friday night denying the allegations, calling them “unfounded” and “unworthy of a response.”

The recording surfaced a day after a defense attorney for Olmert on Thursday accused former aide Zaken of having long planned to blackmail her boss, using recordings of a meeting between Zaken and her psychic to buttress the claim.

And that slice of courtroom drama came two days after the court heard recordings of Olmert trying to convince Shaken not to testify against him in the ongoing corruption cases.

Prosecutors are trying to use the recordings, supplied by Zaken as part of a plea bargain, to prove that Olmert took funds for illegal use and was guilty of witness tampering.

Olmert was acquitted in two major corruption cases in 2012, but later found guilty of other unrelated graft charges for which he has been sentenced to jail.

Zaken is serving out an 11-month sentence handed down to her in May.

Olmert resigned as prime minister in September 2008 after police investigators recommended that he be indicted.

In May, Olmert was sentenced to six years in prison, a two-year suspended term, and a fine of NIS 1 million ($289,000) for accepting bribes in a separate graft case known as the “Holyland affair,” revolving around a large Jerusalem residential development. He was ordered to report to prison on September 1, but the prison date was suspended pending his appeal.

The Holyland affair is considered one of the worst corruption scandals in the country’s history. At the center of the case was the Holyland housing development, a hulking hilltop project that Jerusalem residents long suspected was tainted by corruption.

The case broke in 2010 after Shmuel Dachner, a businessman who was involved in the project, turned state’s witness. Dachner died from an illness in 2013, in the midst of the trial and before Olmert’s attorneys had completed their cross-examination of him.