State closes graft probe into former PM Barak

Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein on Tuesday announced that the graft probe into former prime minister Ehud Barak would be closed due to lack of evidence.

Barak’s attorneys at the Ram Caspi law firm said the former prime minister would formally address the investigation after Weinstein officially closed the probe later in the week.

The allegations against Barak, which surfaced in 2014, were leveled by former prime minister Ehud Olmert in a conversation secretly recorded by his then-aide Shula Zaken in 2011.

Olmert was one of eight former officials and businessmen convicted in March 2014 in a real estate corruption case known as the Holyland affair, which officials have characterized as the largest in Israel’s history. He is said to start an 18-month jail term next month.

The report that the probe against Barak would be dropped came after Olmert was questioned by the Israel Police’s Lahav 433 anti-corruption unit over his allegation that Barak had pocketed tens of millions of dollars in bribes skimmed off Israeli arms sales, Channel 2 reported.

Barak, Olmert said in the recorded conversation, “took millions, tens of millions of dollars in bribes. There was no arms deal done by Israel [that was not affected]. Everybody is talking about it.”

Barak, who also served as defense minister during part of Olmert’s 2006-9 term as prime minister, was a key figure in pushing Olmert to resign the premiership as corruption allegations massed against him.

While the Supreme Court last month struck down the main bribery conviction for Olmert’s part in the Holyland scandal, the justices upheld a more minor bribery conviction in the case, reducing Olmert’s sentence from six years to 18 months. He and others whose convictions were upheld in the case are set to begin serving their sentences on February 15.

He will be the first Israeli prime minister to serve a prison sentence.

Next week, Olmert is set to appeal a bribery conviction in a separate case. He was found guilty of accepting envelopes full of cash from American businessman and fundraiser Morris Talansky in exchange for political favors during Olmert’s decade-long stint as mayor of Jerusalem. That conviction earned him an eight-month prison sentence.

Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.