Former Olmert aide granted get out of jail early card

A parole board granted an early prison release to former prime minister Ehud Olmert’s aide Monday, slashing a third off her sentence over a bribe-taking conviction in a real estate corruption scandal.

Shula Zaken could see freedom by the end of the month after the board accepted her request for early parole and decided to curtail her 11-month term that began on July 15 last year.

If all goes according to plan, Zaken would walk out of prison before her former boss Olmert has even begun his sentence. He was convicted in the same graft case, which became known as the Holyland Affair.

Under the terms of her release, Zaken will be required to present herself to police 48 hours after getting out, the Ynet news website reported. For the following six months she will need to register at the police during the first and third weeks of each month and she may not leave the country until June.

Not complying with any of the conditions could see her put back behind bars.

Zaken had asked to start her sentence as soon as possible in order to be out of prison and back home in time for the Passover holiday in April.

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.

As part of a plea bargain Zaken had turned against Olmert and agreed to testify against him, albeit after all the evidence in the case had already been heard. Zaken provided prosecutors with recordings of conversations she had with Olmert in which he allegedly offered her bribes to not bear witness against him.

Although the court refused to hear new testimony regarding the real estate case, the recordings are key pieces of evidence in the reopened case against Olmert and attorney Navot Tel Zur for obstruction of justice and witness tampering, in which the two allegedly tried to dissuade Zaken from testifying against her former boss during the Holyland trial.

In one of eight recordings handed over to the prosecution by Zaken, Olmert can be heard assuring his former aide that her family would be taken care of if she were convicted and sentenced for receiving bribes and money laundering in the Holyland real estate graft case.

“I have arranged for you to receive $10,000 a month, but he [Rami Ungar, an Olmert associate] is only willing to pay you in a foreign bank account,” Olmert said and went on to promise Zaken further compensation if he was able to raise the funds.

In another conversation recorded after Zaken was offered a plea bargain, Olmert warns her that she would not withstand the mental stress of the questioning that would be required of her. He also tells her that a plea bargain could be used as evidence against him in other criminal charges he faced.

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 the Holyland case, revolving around a large Jerusalem residential development, and ordered to report to prison on September 1, but the prison date was suspended pending his appeal.