Defense attorney: key Holyland witness claims Olmert not bribed

Former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is charged with taking millions of shekels in bribes from the developers of the Holyland project in Jerusalem.

24 February 13 18:11, Chen Ma'anit

In today's hearing at the Tel Aviv District Court, former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's defense attorney, Adv. Roy Blecher, today claimed that the list of bribed officials prepared by the state's witness, SD, before the police began investigating the Holyland affair, did not include Olmert's name. Olmert is charged with taking millions of shekels in bribes from the developers of the Holyland project in Jerusalem in exchange for promoting the project.

Blecher today began his cross-examination of SD. The cross-examination is expected to last for several days. In today's hearing, Blecher presented Judge David Rozen a page from SD's diary, which in which he allegedly wrote in 2008 the names of the people he had bribed to promote the Holyland project. Blecher said that Olmert's name was not on the list, nor was the name of Olmert's chief of staff Shula Zaken, or his brother, Yossi Olmert, through whom the prosecutor claims that Olmert received the bribes.

The diary page presented in evidence states, "The agreement with Hillel (to take money from the safe). I paid for the Holyland Uri S., Uri. L. Kobi B., Yehoshua P., Ohad E., Yad Sarah, etc."

Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on February 24, 2013

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