Israel ex-PM Olmert set to begin jail term in graft scandal

Israel's disgraced former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is set to become the first ex-premier in the country's history to serve a jail term nearly two months after the apex court upheld his bribery conviction in a major corruption scandal.
Olmert will begin his sentence tomorrow after a Jerusalem court last week added another month behind bars to his jail term after the former prime minister pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice in various cases against him.
The plea deal represented the first admission of wrongdoing by the former prime minister and Jerusalem mayor, who has consistently maintained his innocence throughout eight years of legal proceedings in various graft cases.

Olmert admitted to trying to persuade his former secretary Shula Zaken not to testify against him in the Holyland scandal and a second affair involving cash infusions from US businessman Morris Talansky, and of trying to buy her silence, the Times of Israel reported.
In December, the Supreme Court reduced the 70-year-old leader's sentence from six years to 18 months in prison, and acquitted him on one of the charges, bringing an end to what was dubbed the largest bribery scandal in Israel's history.
The Holyland scandal refers to a housing project of high rise buildings over a hilltop overlooking the city.

In 2010, Olmert was named the key suspect in the case and was accused of receiving hundreds of thousands of shekels for helping developers get the project past various legal and planning obstacles.

Olmert, who was prime minister from 2006 to 2009, was sentenced in May, 2014 to six years in prison on two separate charges of taking bribes. He was forced to resign as premier in 2009 when the corruption allegations surfaced.
He was also fined 1 million shekels (about USD 250,000) in 2014 for receiving some 500,000 shekels (USD 125,000) in bribes through his brother in the Holyland case during his tenure as Jerusalem mayor before becoming prime minister.

A total of 13 government officials, developers and other businesspersons were charged in three separate graft cases.
Among those convicted included former Jerusalem mayor Uri Lupolianski and Danny Dankner, former chairman of Bank Hapoalim, Israel's second-biggest bank.