Judge criticizes Olmert plea deal, adds month to sentence
Court decides not to approve plea deal signed by former PM in full, adding time to his sentence and fining him NIS 50,000; Olmert to start serving 19-month sentence next week.
The Jerusalem Magistrade's Court added on Wednesday another month to the sentence of former prime minister Ehud Olmert on bribery and fined him NIS 50,000.
Judge Avital Chen harshly criticized and rejected parts of the plea bargain Olmert signed, as part of which he pleaded guilty and was convicted of two counts of obstruction of justice in the Holyland and Talansky trials.
Olmert, 70, is expected to started serving a prison sentence of a year and seven months on Monday, making him the first former head of government in Israel to go to prison.
The bribery charges related to his 1992-2003 term as Jerusalem's mayor and real estate deals in the city.
As part of the agreement, Olmert was sentenced to six months imprisonment, but only five of which will be served concurrently with the sentence he received in the Holyland case.
Judge Chen noted that "The court was not presented with reasoning to overlap the sentences. The meaning of the agreement is that Olmert will not serve a sentence for the obstruction offenses. I'm having a hard time approving an arrangement according to which a man who committed two grave obstruction offenses will not serve an accumulative sentence."
Ahead of the court hearing, inquiries were made to see whether both sides would agree to change the plea bargain at the last minute, so another month is added to the sentence. After a short negotiation, the two sides could not reach an agreement, leading Judge Chen to make his unusual ruling.
Olmert is still facing an additional sentence of eight months imprisonment in the Talansky case, but he is still pending a decision from the Supreme Court.
Attorney Eli Zohar, who represents Olmert, claimed there was no special reason to add 30 more days to the former prime minister's sentence, particularly since the law states the sentences should be served concurrently.
"I regret the judge's ruling," Zohar said. "We went for the deal as it was based on the legal opinion of the top officials in the justice system, and received the approval of the attorney general. I regret that the court thought 30 days justify the ruination of the deal. Olmert's reaction was disappointment, because we had an agreement. Agreements must be kept, as do plea deals."
Prosecutor Keren Bar-Menachem from the State Attorney's Central District said the prosecution "viewed the plea as appropriate punishment. We saw the great importance of having the defendant for the first time publicly take responsibility for his actions. The court chose to slightly deviate from the agreement."
At the center of the obstruction case are recordings supplied by onetime Olmert aide Shula Zaken as state witness.
Olmert can be heard in the tapes trying to dissuade her from testifying against him. He was recorded explaining to Zaken that if she declined to testify, it would be impossible to use the diaries in which she recorded payments to "the secret cash box" as evidence.
"If you don't get on the witness stand," Olmert was recorded saying, "he (prosecutor Uri Korev) can jump, dance in the air, but he can't convict you. He cannot present these diaries… He'll murder you… and you'll incriminate yourself on the witness stand, that's what bothers me."
Olmert was found guilty in 2014 of two bribery charges - accepting 500,000 shekels ($129,000) from developers of a Jerusalem real estate project and 60,000 shekels ($15,500) in a separate land deal. He was sentenced to six years in jail by a judge who said Olmert's crimes as a public official were akin to treason.
Ruling in December on his appeal, the Supreme Court said it had not been proven beyond a reasonable doubt that Olmert had solicited the 500,000 shekels, and it cut his jail term to 18 months.
A separate eight-month prison term is pending since Olmert's conviction last May in another case related to cash payments he was alleged to have received from an American businessman. His appeal against that verdict is being considered by the Supreme Court.
Reuters and AP contributed to this report.
