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Israeli Leader Interrogated Again

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The New York Times

Published: August 2, 2008

JERUSALEM - The prime minister of Israel, Ehud Olmert, underwent a fourth round of police questioning Friday, part of an unfolding corruption inquiry that has eclipsed his political career.

Officers of the National Fraud Unit questioned the prime minister at his official residence for almost three hours, an hour longer than scheduled, a police spokesman said, describing the investigation as intensive.

Bowing to public and political pressure, Olmert announced Wednesday that he would resign after his party chose a new leader in September elections.
Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said the questioning focused on two affairs. One concerned allegations that in the years before he became prime minister, Olmert, as mayor of Jerusalem and then as a government minister, received illicit funds from an American businessman, Morris Talansky.

There were no details about the second subject of Friday's interrogation. But the police announced last month that the investigation against Olmert had broadened to include suspicions that he had billed multiple state and charitable agencies for the same airline flights in the years before becoming prime minister, using the extra money for private family trips.

Olmert is the subject of several other investigations, some of which have been pending for more than a year. He denies wrongdoing and has not been charged.

The spectacle of a sitting prime minister being probed for crimes including bribery, fraud and breach of trust has caused palpable tension between the Israeli premier and law enforcement authorities.

Olmert's lawyers have contended that the state prosecutors and the police marked the prime minister, determined to bring him down, while the attorney general, Menachem Mazuz, suggested last week that Olmert has been trying to obstruct the investigation, saying "the police have met considerable difficulties in setting dates to interrogate the prime minister and in setting the length of the sessions."

Olmert also has complained of being tried in public, with complete transcripts of his interrogations by police appearing in the popular newspapers.

In his address to the nation Wednesday, Olmert conveyed a sense of having been wronged, but was restrained in his criticism of the authorities.

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