Ex-PM Olmert applies for early release from jail
Former premier began 19-month term for bribery, obstruction of justice in February; his request will be discussed in December
Former prime minister Ehud Olmert on Wednesday filed a formal application for early release from the 19-month jail sentence he is serving for bribery and obstruction of justice. The request will be discussed by a parole board on December 25, Israel’s Channel 10 news reported.
Olmert, who began serving his term in February, is considered to be “a good prisoner,” according to Prison Service officials quoted by the TV report, and the Prison Service is not expected to oppose an early release. A decision on his early release would therefore likely depend on the stance of the state prosecution.
Olmert, who was handed the 19-month term for offenses in connection with the construction of Jerusalem’s Holyland residential complex, is also currently appealing a separate eight-month term in the so-called Talansky affair, handed down in May of 2015. That ongoing case could also have an impact on his prospects for early release, the TV report said.
In July, after rejecting his two previous requests for leave, the Israel Prisons Service determined that Olmert was eligible for a brief furlough from Ma’asiyahu Prison in Ramle, after completing the first third of his sentence.
Olmert was one of eight former officials and businessmen convicted in March 2014, in the Holyland real estate corruption case, which officials have characterized as the largest graft case in Israel’s history.
He was sentenced in 2014 to six years in prison over two separate charges of taking bribes in the early 2000s, when he served as mayor of the capital.
In December 2015, the Supreme Court reduced his sentence to 18 months in prison, after overturning one of the convictions of the Tel Aviv District Court
In March, the prisons service rejected Olmert’s request for furlough so he could attend the funeral of former Mossad chief Meir Dagan, despite the close friendship between the two men.
Earlier that month, Olmert filed a request to be allowed to attend the bar mitzvah celebration of his first grandson. The prisons service denied that request too, which came only days after Olmert began serving his 18-month prison term.
The prisons service refitted a wing in the Ramle prison especially to house the former prime minister, keeping him in a separate complex shared only by carefully screened fellow convicts.
The Times of Israel Community.