Olmert pleads with judges to let him ‘leave court with my head held high’

Former prime minister Ehud Olmert implored Israeli judges on Wednesday to enable him to leave the court “with my head held high” when they consider what sentence to hand him for his breach of trust conviction in July.

“It’s not for me to advise you,” Olmert declared in an emotional address after an eight-hour sentencing hearing in the Jerusalem Magistrates Court. “But I ask you to let me leave the court with my head held high.” He said he had “learned the lessons” from his conviction, and that wherever his career led him from now on, “things will not be the same.”

Olmert’s attorney criticized what he called the state prosecution’s media assault on the former prime minister throughout the protracted legal battle against him, and called on the court not to impose any punishment on Olmert.

“Olmert’s blood has been shed” in the prosecution’s campaign against him, attorney Eli Zohar told the court.

Earlier in the day, state prosecutors asked the court to sentence Olmert to six months of community service, plus up to a year of probationary jail time.

Deputy State Attorney Eli Abarbanel said that Olmert’s actions were “the gravest offense and a severe breach of trust.” However, the prosecution did not ask for jail time for the ex-premier and did not request that the court rule that his crimes involved moral turpitude. A jail term “would not be appropriate,” Abarbanel said.

Nonetheless, said legal expert Moshe Negbi, were the court to sentence Olmert to three months or more of community service, the gravity of that sentence would constitute the equivalent to a “turpitude” ruling, and could prevent Olmert from making a return to political life.

Olmert was convicted of breach of trust in a real estate investment case in July, but cleared in the same trial of two sets of more substantive allegations, in the so-called Rishon Tours and Talansky cases.

Abarbanel said that Olmert had not caused direct damage to the state in the affair or profited directly from the charges. He said that a compound sentence of six months community service, plus up to a year of probationary jail time and a fine, was an appropriate punishment.

Olmert’s attorney Zohar said during deliberations that the defense had decided to waive the right to call in character witnesses. Although there “were thousands of calls [from people willing] to show up” to testify on Olmert’s behalf, the defense decided to stick with “the things you have heard about Olmert’s life from Olmert himself, and the prosecution and defense witnesses.”

If the court finds that the case did involve moral turpitude, and if Olmert is sentenced to a minimum of three months in prison (even in probation) then by law he will be barred from re-entering politics for at least seven years. That would quash any possibility that Olmert might lead a centrist party in the elections that are slated to take place in October 2013, as has been speculated since July’s verdicts. However, a breach of trust conviction for a politician has never before carried both moral turpitude and a prison sentence of three months or more, legal analysts have said.

On Tuesday Olmert’s defense team said that Olmert would waive his right to benefits due to him as a former prime minister, including an office, a car and a personal assistant; his lawyers hoped this would reduce the likelihood of a moral turpitude ruling.

Prosecution attorneys labeled the prosecution’s tactic “legal acrobatics.”

In a separate case, Olmert is also facing charges of taking bribes in the Holyland real estate scandal when he served as mayor of Jerusalem. That case is widely regarded as one of the largest corruption scandals in Israel’s history. In addition to Olmert, it also involves another former mayor of Jerusalem, Uri Lupolianski, plus former Israel Lands Administration director Yaakov Efrati and several others. That trial is ongoing.