American citizen Moshe Talansky, the state’s star witness in the case building against Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, is now scheduled to give his testimony on Tuesday.

In response to a petition from the prime minister’s legal team, the Jerusalem District Court on Friday morning pushed his scheduled testimony back, from Sunday to Tuesday to permit the defense team additional time to review the documents pertaining to the investigation.

The district court president, Justice Mousya Arad asked State Prosecutor Moshe Lador and the attorney’s for the prime minister to attempt to reach an agreement regarding a date for Talansky’s testimony, but the sides were unable to do so. The curt ruled the deposition will be on Tuesday, 27 May, at 9am.

In the meantime, Prime Minister Olmert was questioned for the second time in three weeks on Friday morning, for one hour, with police presenting what they called “difficult questions”. Following the questioning police officials declined comment.

As the district court was hearing the petition on behalf of Olmert to delay Talansky’s testimony, police were questioning the prime minister in his official Jerusalem residence.

Olmert’s longtime partner and attorney, Uri Messer, was questioned on Thursday, telling police that there was hundreds of thousands of dollars in a safe and from time-to-time, he would hand Olmert cash as he requested. Messer’s testimony according to bits and pieces of information released by police is more in line with Talansky’s statements than with the prime minister.

Olmert’s bureau chief and personal assistant of many years, Shula Zaken, is remaining silent during questioning police reported. It appears she too is a potential future recipient of a criminal indictment for her role in illegal activities involving Olmert during his tenure as Jerusalem’s mayor and as minister of Industry & Trade.

(Yechiel Spira – YWN Israel)