Disgraced ex-Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert was released from prison on Sunday after serving 16 months of a 27-month sentence for fraud and bribery.
Olmert, 71, became Israel's first ex-prime minister to go to jail when he was convicted in 2014 of accepting bribes to promote a real-estate project in Jerusalem, and of obstructing justice. He took the bribes while mayor of Jerusalem and trade minister, before he began a three-year stint as prime minister in 2006.
Before its decision to release him, the parole board said that he had undergone a rehabilitation process in prison, and that his behaviour had been “impeccable”.
The Attorney General, Avichai Mendelbit, and State Prosecutor Shai Nitzan decided not to oppose the release, despite Mr Nitzan previously saying that he would block any such move.
A previous request for a pardon from Olmert to the President of Israel, Reuven Rivlin, had been rejected.
He will now volunteer at two charities until May 2018, the date he was originally scheduled to be released.
Olmert is currently under investigation for allegedly disclosing classified information, after it was reported that he had smuggled his
autobiography out of jail. The book must be cleared by the military censor, but he is suspected of using his lawyer to take sections of the manuscript straight to the publishing house, without having it checked.
Police raided the Yedioth Ahronoth publishing house on June 13 in search of the material.
Olmert was the first Israeli Prime Minister to go to prison. Moshe Katzav, who was President from 2000 to 2007, was convicted in 2010 of rape and sentenced to seven years in prison. He was released in 2016.
Benyamin Netanyahu, the current Prime Minister, is a suspect in two open police inquiries. One focuses on whether he proposed passing legislation that would harm a competitor of an Israel newspaper – also called Yediot Ahronoth – if the paper’s editor agreed to give him more positive coverage. The other is investigating claims he accepted improper gifts from wealthy supporters.
Mr Netanyahu has repeatedly denied wrongdoing in either case.
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