With a number of trials and appeals still pending, former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert will become the first Israeli Prime Minister to be sent to prison for a criminal conviction. He joins a former President and a former Chief Rabbi of Israel is currently in the midst of his criminal trial.

Olmert appealed his conviction which was handed down by the Tel Aviv District Court as did the other defendants in the case. Instead of six years imprisonment, the former Prime Minister will only have to serve 18 months after a five-justice panel of the Supreme Court acquitted him on the major bribery case connected to the Holyland real estate case. The case pertaining to a NIS 500,000 bribe was kicked out, but the conviction was held up regarding NIS 60,000 received from codefendant Danny Dankner, who 3-year prison term was knocked down to 2-years by the High Court.

The only defendant in the group who is not being sent to prison is former Jerusalem Mayor Uri Lupoliansky. Some of the others had their sentences reduced by the appeal but the appeals of key players Meir Rabin and Uri Sheetrit who received five and seven years imprisonment respectively, as was reported earlier.

The court announced the defendants would begin serving their prison terms on February 18, 2016, which is 9 Adar 1 5776.

(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)