Former Israeli PM Olmert was put behind bars

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Monday 15 Feb 2016 - 20:03 Makkah mean time-6-5-1437 Image from washingtonpost Jerusalem, (IINA) - Israel’s Former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has started serving his 19-month prison sentence for bribery and obstruction of justice, becoming the first Israeli premier to be imprisoned and capping a years-long legal saga that forced him to resign in 2006 during the last serious round of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, The Guardian reported. Olmert walked into the Maasiyahu prison in central Israel hours after he released a video making a last-minute plea to Israelis. In the video, meant to salvage his legacy, he appealed to the nation to remember his peacemaking efforts as leader and denied any wrongdoing in the bribery conviction against him. The three-and-a-half minute video released by his office and filmed at his home a day earlier, shows Olmert saying it was a painful and strange time for him and his family and that he was paying a heavy price. He said he has accepted the sentence because “no man is above the law”. Olmert, 70 year-old, was convicted in March 2014 in a wide-ranging case that accused him of accepting bribes to promote a controversial real-estate project in Jerusalem. The charges pertained to a period when he was mayor of Jerusalem and trade minister, years before he became prime minister in 2006, a point he reiterated in his statement on Monday. He was initially sentenced to six years in the case, but Israel’s Supreme Court later upheld a lesser charge, reducing the sentence to 18 months. That was extended by a month earlier this year after Olmert pressured a confidant not to testify in multiple legal cases against him. Olmert is also awaiting a ruling in an appeal in a separate case, in which he was sentenced to eight months in prison for unlawfully accepting money from an American supporter. Israel has sent other senior officials to prison, including Moshe Katsav, who held the mostly ceremonial post of president and who is serving a seven-year sentence for rape. Olmert was forced to resign in early 2009 amid the corruption allegations, which undermined the last serious round of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks and cleared the way for Binyamin Netanyahu’s rise to power. Despite his long career as a public servant, former prison officials said Olmert would be treated like any other inmate, despite being held in a special wing for security reasons. Haim Glick, a former Israeli prison service official, told Israeli Channel 2 TV that Olmert would need to participate in roll call, be in his cell by 10pm and have limited phone use. “He will receive good treatment like the rest of the prisoners but not any better than them,” he said. SM/IINA