On the backdrop of the clash between Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and State Comptroller Micha Lindenstrauss, the State Prosecutor's Office will begin examining the findings appearing in the comptroller's report regarding the prime minister's tenure as industry, trade and labor minister.
The prosecutors are expected to form an opinion on the matter and hand their recommendations in the coming days to Attorney General Menachem Mazuz, who will then decided whether to launch a criminal investigation against Olmert, as recommended by the comptroller.
In accordance with Basic Law: The State Comptroller, the comptroller handed his severe report to Mazuz, as he believes a criminal act is suspected. The attorney general must respond within half a year, but it appears that Mazuz will need less than six months to make a decision on the matter.
Sources in the State Prosecutor's Office told Ynet on Wednesday that the material handed by the State Comptroller's Office was much more detailed than the material handed in the Bank Leumi affair .
The report and the suspicions
The case in question refers to a project that Attorney Uri Messer wished to receive funds for from the ministry which Olmert headed. Messer is a former partner and close friend of Olmert.
Olmert is suspected of interfering with the process to promote his friend's interests.
The report details how Olmert acted to change conditions set by the professional bodies in the investment office in order to grant Messer benefits.
Part of the report read, "This is a factory that received from the investment office the status of an authorized factory in 1992 and as a result, funds from the state. Five years later, in 1997, the authorization was retracted since the factory was not built and its plans, as were authorized, were not carried out…
"Then, in 2001, the factory filed another request for authorization status, a request which was not even heard until 2003, when the project's manager hired attorney Uri Messer, who also represents Olmert on personal matters and headed the group backing Olmert's 1998 campaign for Jerusalem mayor. He was also his partner at a law firm."
"Despite their past partnership, and despite their personal ties and present attorney-client relationship, Mr Olmert did not keep himself from participating, actively and intensively, in making decisions, after being told by his professional crew that there were many reservations regarding this factory," the report said.
Lindenstrass stated that in the situation that was created, Olmert should have completely withdrawn himself from dealing with the request.
The comptroller also accused the aides of acting inappropriately, saying that in reality, they were Olmert's "long arm."
"They did not operate from an independent source of authority, but only acted in the name of the minister," he said.
'A shameful report'
On Wednesday evening, Olmert's attorneys sent a scathing letter to Mazuz, calling the report "shameful."
"We are frustrated that the prime minister, as a politician, is always considered a member of the 'evil' group and often times its leader. We're frustrated that the state comptroller, as the former president of a district court, is always considered a member of the 'good' group, and in his own mind its leader," wrote Olmert's attorneys of Lindenstrauss.
The attorneys, Eli Zohar and Roi Bleher, claimed that Lindenstrauss marked Olmert as a target and refused to consider any of the prime minister's explanations. Zahar and Bleher said that the manner in which Olmert promoted Messer's project was exactly the same as the way he treated any number of similar projects.
"If this wasn't the prime minister of Israel, who every day fulfills one of the most complex roles in the world, and a state comptroller, who in his desire to go down in history as the man who cleaned Israel's stables is abusing much of the public resources available to him for his own personal gain – it might have been possible to laugh at Lindenstrauss' behavior. But given their status, it's only a sad affair. Very sad," they wrote.
The attorneys asked Mazuz to review the matter and rule as quickly as possible.