Tel-Chai Nation: Olmert indicted for accepting bribes

Ehud Olmert is in the news once again, and is now under indictment for taking bribes:

JERUSALEM – Ehud Olmert was once described as the finest politician Israel had ever produced — before his reputation, like many of his predecessors, was dragged through the mud by a succession of graft scandals.

On Thursday the former prime minister was indicted for allegedly taking bribes in a massive property scandal during his time as mayor of Jerusalem, adding to a lengthy charge sheet that has already seen him go on trial on three unrelated counts of fraud and bribery.

The announcement served as yet another humiliation for the debonair 66-year-old who was premier for three years from 2006 after his mentor Ariel Sharon lapsed into a coma from which he has never emerged. [...]

Olmert resigned from the premiership in September 2008 after police recommended that he be indicted in several other cases of graft, all relating to a period before he became premier in 2006.

He is accused of unlawfully accepting gifts of cash-stuffed envelopes from Jewish-American businessman Morris Talanski and of multiple billing for foreign trips.

He has also been charged with cronyism in connection with an investment centre which he oversaw when he was trade and industry minister between 2003 and 2006.

The stream of allegations dogged Olmert throughout much of his premiership. He actually resigned as premier in September 2008 but remained in office until March 2009, when Benjamin Netanyahu was sworn in.

As prime minister, Olmert endured periods of dismal single-digit approval ratings — the worst to blight a sitting premier — and himself once said he was “a very unpopular prime minister.”