Word: olmert
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Israel top police officers on Sunday said there was evidence to indict Prime Minister Ehud Olmert for alleged fraud and bribery. The police decision caps months of political turmoil and drama that have marred Olmert's tenure as prime minister, stalling peace talks with the Palestinians and, more recently, the Syrians. The police will now pass on their recommendation to the country's attorney general who will decide whether to prosecute Israel's beleaguered and unpopular leader...
...police decision comes after an 18-month investigation into allegations that Olmert took envelopes stuffed with thousands of dollars in cash from a prominent Jewish-American businessman. Police say that the prime minister should also be indicted for double-billing his first-class trips abroad to various Jewish charitable institutions and then using the excess cash to pay for his family vacations...
...expected that the attorney general will decide on the police recommendations within the next few weeks. In the past, Attorney General Menachem Mazuz has sometimes ignored the police's advice, but he is unlikely to do so in such a controversial case, in which the evidence of Olmert's alleged fraud and bribe-taking spooled out on nightly TV news like a tawdry soap opera...
...Wednesday, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad arrived in Moscow hoping to persuade Russia to sell him sophisticated air-defense systems - and reportedly offering the Russian navy the use of one of its Mediterranean ports. Late on Wednesday, the Israeli Foreign Ministry announced that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Russian President Dmitri Medvedev had spoken on the phone to clear the air over the Georgia conflict and Russian arms sales to Syria...
...That post-Sharon political drift, combined with the serial reversals suffered by the Bush Administration across the Middle East - and its lame-duck status as the region waits for a new U.S. President - may at least explain why Israel's political class had been willing to allow Olmert to stumble on for so long. Now, Israel's leaders will be forced to forge a new equilibrium in a more testing time...