Former AG and Olmert attorneys face off during Tel Aviv conference

A bitter dispute broke out Tuesday between former attorney general Menahem Mazuz and lawyers representing former prime minister Ehud Olmert. The row erupted at a Tel Aviv conference addressing the idea of bypassing court rulings through legislation.

Mazuz, at the podium, said that Olmert supporters had flooded the media with “disinformation” during his corruption trial, which ended last month. “The discussion should be based on truth and facts,” said Mofaz, who headed the handling of the case during his term as attorney general from 2004-10.

The Jerusalem District Court acquitted Olmert of two charges and found him guilty in one, and will hear sentencing pleas next week.

Mazuz said that, contrary to the public spin, Olmert had not been cleared, and that he had been found by the court to have received large sums of money in envelopes in the so-called Talansky affair.

Two of Olmert’s attorneys objected to what they said was the inappropriate discussion of the case, before sentence had been passed, and got up to leave the room.

Mazuz also walked out, and complained later that Olmert’s attorneys, together with the media, were working “to prevent the public from learning what really happened” in the affair.