Parole board to rule on Olmert plea for early prison release

Jailed former prime minister Ehud Olmert is set to appear before a parole board on Thursday to make a plea for early release based on good behavior after serving 16 months of a 27-month sentence.

The State Prosecutor’s Office is said to be opposed to possible early release following Olmert’s alleged divulging of sensitive information in memoirs he is writing.

It has said the book Olmert is writing contains “sensitive security issues” and that his lawyer was caught leaving the prison with a chapter on “secret operations” not approved by the censor for publication. The prosecution has asked police to open a criminal investigation into the matter and has argued that it would be inappropriate to consider early release until the probe was completed and it was clear whether Olmert had engaged in illegal activity.

Olmert has denied doing anything wrong.

Police searched the offices of the Yedioth Books publishing house and the home of Yehuda Yaari, who is editing Olmert’s memoirs on behalf of the publisher, over the incident, and confiscated manuscripts and other materials.

A person close to Olmert told the Ynet news site Wednesday that the former premier and mayor of Jerusalem received news of the prosecution’s stance “with shock and he is convinced that this is matter personally against him.”

The source added that Olmert was extremely tense ahead of the hearing.

“He hopes to be released soon and be able to return to his children and grandchildren. This is all he cares about right now. He has no immediate plans for the day after [release] and all his energy is focused on…[being] released from prison. He believes, rightly, that he doesn’t deserve to be there one more day,” said the Olmert associate.

If his parole is granted, he will be released from Ma’asiyahu Prison on Sunday after serving two thirds of his sentence. The law allows authorities to reduce sentences by a third for good behavior.

Earlier this week, the former premier was released from Tel Hashomer hospital after being admitted for chest pains a week prior. He was let go with instructions for further treatment on Tuesday, just two days before the expected hearing.

After a picture of Olmert in a hospital gown, eating with plastic cutlery, surfaced on Friday last week, both Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon and Education Minister Naftali Bennett said that it was time for him to be released from prison.

“Like all the people of Israel, I saw the picture of Ehud Olmert in the hospital and I was shocked,” Kahlon tweeted on Sunday. “Olmert was tried and served his proper sentence and should not be humiliated or degraded beyond that. Nobody questions his … many years of tremendous contribution to the security of Israel. The time has come to release Ehud Olmert to his family.”

Bennett too said it was time for Olmert to be released. “This is a person who, with all the political differences between us, has certainly made a very deep contribution to the security of the country … when he served as prime minister,” he said this week.

Olmert was one of eight former officials and businessmen convicted in March 2014 in the Holyland real estate corruption case, which has been characterized as among the largest graft cases in Israel’s history.

In September 2016, he was sentenced to an additional eight months behind bars for the so-called Talansky affair. In that case, a court upheld a 2015 conviction over his accepting envelopes full of cash from American businessman and fundraiser Morris Talansky, in exchange for political favors during his decade-long term as mayor from 1993 to 2003.

The Prisons Service refitted a wing in the Ma’asiyahu Prison in Ramle to house Olmert, the first former premier to serve jail time, keeping him in a separate complex shared only by carefully screened fellow convicts.