Former Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert will likely be sentenced to several years in prison at a hearing Tuesday, though the courts may keep him out of prison while he appeals the case.
The highly anticipated hearing at Tel Aviv District Court comes over a month after Olmert was convicted on multiple bribery charges stemming from his involvement as mayor of Yerushalayim in a massive graft scandal surrounding the development of the city’s Holyland hilltop residential complex.
Nine other officials were also convicted in the scandal, and most of them will also be sentenced Tuesday.
If Judge David Rozen sends Olmert to prison, as he is expected to do, Olmert will become the first former prime minister to serve jail time since the state’s founding.
At the hearing, Rozen is expected to set a date for him to begin his term, but Olmert will have 45 days to appeal the sentence. The Supreme Court will later rule on whether he would be jailed during the appeals process or allowed to remain out of prison while the appeal proceeds.
A special team is already being set up, however, to handle the unprecedented situation of sending a former prime minister to prison.
View of the Holyland housing project which was allegedly illegally built. March 2011. (photo by Nati Shohat/Flash90.)
An aerial view of the Holyland housing project in Jerusalem, March 2011 (photo credit: Nati Shohat/Flash90)
The state prosecution, represented by prosecuting attorney Yehonatan Tadmor, asked in April for severe punishments for those convicted in the case, recommending a six-year sentence and NIS 1.3 million (some $370,000) in fines for the former prime minister.
Read more: at The Times of Israel.
{Matzav.com Newscenter}
