Israeli police say they suspect Prime Minister Ehud Olmert of “serious fraud” after questioning him for a third time on Friday as part of a widening corruption investigation.
Olmert, who is facing his fifth investigation since taking office two years ago, has not been charged with a crime and says he has broken no law. He has said he will resign only if he is indicted.
Police have been investigating claims that Olmert breached party funding laws by accepting donations from an American businessman over the past decade, mostly through envelopes filled with cash.
After questioning Olmert for more than two hours yesterday, police said they would look, in particular, at the fact that while he was mayor of Jerusalem and then trade and industry minister he asked for “duplicate funding for his trips abroad on public duty from several public bodies, including the state, with each of them requested to fund the same trip.”
“The travel agency which handled Olmert’s trips produced and sent invoices to each of the funding bodies ... as if each of them was solely funding the trips,” the police statement said.
Police said the funding was “significantly greater” than the cost of the trip.
The remainder was put into a special private bank account in Olmert’s name and used to fund his private trips abroad, including those with his family.
Police said their investigation was at an “advanced” stage.
Olmert was mayor of Jerusalem for 10 years until 2003, when he joined the Cabinet of the then prime minister, Ariel Sharon.
Olmert’s spokesman, Mark Regev, said the prime minister was “convinced of his innocence.”
Morris Talansky, the businessman who has testified that he gave US$150,000 in cash to Olmert over several years, is due to be cross-examined next week.
Olmert’s Kadima party will hold internal leadership elections in September and some are urging Olmert not to stand again.
Opinion polls suggest a new leader will be chosen, probably Tzipi Livni, the foreign minister.
DISASTER: The Bangladesh Meteorological Department recorded a magnitude 5.7 and tremors reached as far as Kolkata, India, more than 300km away from the epicenter A powerful earthquake struck Bangladesh yesterday outside the crowded capital, Dhaka, killing at least five people and injuring about a hundred, the government said. The magnitude 5.5 quake struck at 10:38am near Narsingdi, Bangladesh, about 33km from Dhaka, the US Geological Survey (USGS) said. The earthquake sparked fear and chaos with many in the Muslim-majority nation of 170 million people at home on their day off. AFP reporters in Dhaka said they saw people weeping in the streets while others appeared shocked. Bangladesh Interim Leader Muhammad Yunus expressed his “deep shock and sorrow over the news of casualties in various districts.” At least five people,
ON THE LAM: The Brazilian Supreme Court said that the former president tried to burn his ankle monitor off as part of an attempt to orchestrate his escape from Brazil Former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro — under house arrest while he appeals a conviction for a foiled coup attempt — was taken into custody on Saturday after the Brazilian Supreme Court deemed him a high flight risk. The court said the far-right firebrand — who was sentenced to 27 years in prison over a scheme to stop Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva from taking office after the 2022 elections — had attempted to disable his ankle monitor to flee. Supreme Court judge Alexandre de Moraes said Bolsonaro’s detention was a preventive measure as final appeals play out. In a video made
It is one of the world’s most famous unsolved codes whose answer could sell for a fortune — but two US friends say they have already found the secret hidden by Kryptos. The S-shaped copper sculpture has baffled cryptography enthusiasts since its 1990 installation on the grounds of the CIA headquarters in Virginia, with three of its four messages deciphered so far. Yet K4, the final passage, has kept codebreakers scratching their heads. Sculptor Jim Sanborn, 80, has been so overwhelmed by guesses that he started charging US$50 for each response. Sanborn in August announced he would auction the 97-character solution to K4
SHOW OF FORCE: The US has held nine multilateral drills near Guam in the past four months, which Australia said was important to deter coercion in the region Five Chinese research vessels, including ships used for space and missile tracking and underwater mapping, were active in the northwest Pacific last month, as the US stepped up military exercises, data compiled by a Guam-based group shows. Rapid militarization in the northern Pacific gets insufficient attention, the Pacific Center for Island Security said, adding that it makes island populations a potential target in any great-power conflict. “If you look at the number of US and bilateral and multilateral exercises, there is a lot of activity,” Leland Bettis, the director of the group that seeks to flag regional security risks, said in an
RSS