Tel-Chai Nation

The Israeli police are to send in their investigation conclusions. It's interesting that MK Zevulun Orlev feels that the police shouldn't make a recommendation on this though:

Knesset State Control Committee chairman Zevulun Orlev on Thursday appealed to Public Security Minister Avi Dichter with a request to prevent the Israel Police from submitting its recommendations on Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's probe in the Bank Leumi affair.

"In no country in the West is it acceptable for the police to make recommendations. It should work on accelerating investigations rather than making dramatic announcements in the media," said Orlev.

The Israel Police is set to release its conclusions later Thursday - with Intelligence and Investigation Division Chief Cmdr. Yohanan Danino signing off on the police recommendations.

The case file will then be passed on to prosecutors for review, and it will ultimately be in the hands of the prosecutors to determine whether or not the case merits an indictment.

Sources close to the case have said over the past two weeks that they did not believe that police would recommend an indictment against the prime minister.

In January 2007, police began their criminal probe into alleged improprieties by Olmert surrounding the privatization of the bank, which occurred during Olmert's tenure as finance minister during the Sharon administration.

According to allegations, in 2005, Olmert intervened in the sale of the core ownership of Bank Leumi on behalf of Frank Lowy and Daniel Abraham, two businessmen who were also personal friends of his.

I suppose it should be left up to the prosecutors investigating the case to handle the indictment parts, so I won't argue with Orlev about that.

Update: ah, now I see why the police shouldn't have to make the decision here: they're now saying that they don't recommend indictment, and I suspect that Danino may have something to do with it:

(IsraelNN.com) The police team investigating Israel's sale of Bank Leumi have found evidence of suspicious and illegal involvement by Prime Minister Olmert - but not enough to justify recommending an indictment.

The official Israel Police investigative team has found some evidence that Ehud Olmert, when serving as Acting Finance Minister in November 2005, acted illegally in promoting his friends' interests during the privatization of Bank Leumi. The team recommended that Olmert not be indicted - but the decision is not theirs to make.

The police presented their findings to the State Prosecution this afternoon (Thursday), after which Moshe Lador, who will assume the position of State Prosecutor on Sunday, will have to make the final decision as to whether or not to indict the Prime Minister.

Well I hope he's more responsible than the police are, though now that I think of it, Orlev is right, the police shouldn't be making the recommendations, their job is to investigate and then provide the results of their inspection to the prosecutors to look over.

Also, there seems to be a slight contradiction as it's said that evidence was found, and it's police who're presumably claiming that there's not enough evidence on which to indict. Update 2: according to this article, yes, it's the police.

Update 3: the daily Yisrael HaYom reports that the investigative team itself feels there's enough evidence, but it's Yohanan Danino himself who's saying there's not. So he seems to be the problem here.

Labels: Israel, political corruption