Holyland developer bribed officials to expand housing project, state witness says

The state’s main witness in a real estate case involving former prime minister Ehud Olmert took the stand for the first time Sunday, telling the court that bribery played a large part in pushing the project through.

Olmert and a host of other officials and businesspeople have been indicted as part of a scandal involving the construction of the large Holyland project in Jerusalem.

“Without the blessing of Olmert and [former Jerusalem mayor] Lupolianski, the plan would never come to fruition,” the witness, identified only as S.D., said.

The witness began his testimony by saying the Holyland developers bribed their way to obtaining special building rights.

“The Holyland project’s building rights allowed construction on an area of 25,000 square meters,” he said. “But because of criminal activities carried out with the knowledge, approval and financing of [landowner] Hillel Charney, we were able to obtain a permit for 311,000 square meters.”

The Holyland real estate scandal, considered by many the most serious corruption scandal in Israeli history, implicated Olmert, who served as Jerusalem’s mayor before becoming prime minister, former Jerusalem mayor Uri Lupolianski and former Israel Lands Administration director Yaakov Efrati, among others.

According to the indictments, millions of shekels in bribes were paid to various Jerusalem municipal and state officials and local businessmen to advance the luxury residential project, a massive development with approximately 1,000 housing units, including two 30-story towers. Much of the project is already built and dominates the Jerusalem landscape.

Olmert, for his part, is being charged with acts allegedly committed while he was mayor of Jerusalem, from 1993 to 2003.

Olmert’s media adviser Amir Dan told reporters the Holyland trial state witness’s testimonies are “a bunch of ‘One Thousand and One Nights’ tales, issued forth from a liar’s teeming brain.”

Prosecution attorney Liat Ben-Ari referred to the testimony in her opening statement, saying “the cases are rare in which those who took so central a part in bribery scandals and acted as mediators come forward to tell the whole story.”

Ben-Ari said, “It is difficult to expect the state witness not to fumble in his testimony seeing as a lot of time has passed, memory has its limitations — and the fact that the affair began 18 years ago.”

Judge David Rosen instructed the state witness before the beginning of his testimony to “feel as free as possible and tell the truth and only the truth.”