With political future hanging in balance, former PM Olmert to face sentencing today

Former prime minister Ehud Olmert faced sentencing early Monday afternoon following his landmark conviction on a breach of trust charge in July.

The conviction, for crimes committed while Olmert served as industry, trade and labor minister over a decade ago, was for the least of three charges the politician was put on trial for.

Yet it made Olmert the first former prime minister to be convicted of a criminal offense, and his sentencing at Jerusalem District Court was to determine whether he becomes the first former head of state to serve time, or whether he can return to political life.

The state prosecutor recommended six months of community service for Olmert, along with fines and probation.

Should the judges rule that the crime involved moral turpitude and sentence him to three months in jail or more, he would be stricken under law from re-entering politics for seven years. A community service sentence could also carry the same weight.

In July, a three-judge panel found the former prime minister guilty of one charge of breach of trust, pertaining to allocations, made while he was a minister, to companies represented by his friend and one-time business associate, Uri Messer. However, Olmert was cleared in the same trial of two sets of more substantive allegations, in the so-called Rishon Tours double billing affair, in which he was accused of holding a travel slush fund, and another count of accepting undeclared money from American businessman Morris Talansky.

At a sentencing hearing earlier this month, 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.

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 sentence.

At the same hearing, Olmert asked the judges to let him 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 former bureau chief, Shula Zaken, was also scheduled for sentencing Monday.

Should Olmert leave the courthouse mostly unscathed, he still faces charges in a separate case 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. It involves, in addition to Olmert, another former mayor of Jerusalem, Uri Lupolianski, plus former Israel Lands Administration director Yaakov Efrati and several others. That trial is ongoing.