Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Breaking News

Date Set for Olmert’s Trial on Corruption Charges

Ehud Olmert’s trial on corruption charges is set to begin on Feb. 22, 2010.

The date was set Friday at a preliminary hearing in Jerusalem District Court. The former Israeli prime minister is charged with fraud, breach of trust, tax evasion, fraudulent receipt of goods and false registration of corporate goods.

The charges stem from allegations that he accepted cash from American businessman Morris Talansky in exchange for favors, double-billed U.S. charities and an Israeli government ministry for travel expenses for overseas trips and granted personal favors to a former law partner acting on behalf of a company.

Olmert’s lawyers had wanted to delay the start of the trial until April 2010 in order to review all the evidence, but a judge set the February date as a compromise.

In court on Friday, Olmert declared his innocence.

“I have arrived here as a completely innocent man, and I believe I’ll leave here a completely innnocent man,” he said, according to media reports. He said that he had been subject to “an almost inhumane three years of slander and interrogrations” and “paid a heavy price.”

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.