According to a News1 report, the parole board which decided to reduce Ehud Olmert’s sentence, included in its decision significantly incorrect information, which was actually taken from the campaign conducted by people working for Olmert’s release. This is what the Israel Prison Service (IPS) Commissioner Ofra Klinger said in a letter sent to senior officials in the State Prosecutor’s Office, headed by Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit.
The parole board ruled that until recently, Olmert had not given instructions regarding the security of the book he had written in prison, and that on May 17, 2017, he had violated them when he gave attorney Chaninah Brandeis classified information to get him out of prison. Klinger explains this is a far cry from what occurred, and extreme leniency was shown towards Olmert.
According to Klinger, “the findings of the parole board, much including a large amount of classified privileged material, in light of the fear of harm to the police examination procedures that began with regard to the removal of materials from the prison by Olmert and his attorneys are baseless factual assertions and were quoted from the media campaign sponsored by his attorneys and those close to him. I believe that the distortion of the facts caused damage to the prison guards and to the organization as a whole.”
According to Klinger, even before Olmert entered the prison in February 2016, the IPS was informed that he intended to write a book in the prison, and the prison authority and Shin Bet security services decided that the book would be written in Olmert’s handwriting and not on a computer. The items would be held by a prison intelligence officer in a unique safe. The security agencies also agreed that the security forces would explain the rules to Olmert.
Klinger added that Olmert kept the rules until he was punished because he had rudely addressed the IPS officer, and that Olmert had stopped honoring the rules of conduct agreed upon with the security forces. From that on, Olmert stopped adhering to the rules that were agreed upon. The IPS also reported to the relevant security forces and even confirmed that their representatives would meeting with Olmert and “act within the framework of their authority”. She also categorically rejects the parole board’s decision that the IPS knew before the Brandeis incident that Olmert was smuggling classified items.
“The claims of the prisoner and his representatives that he did not know that the materials are prohibited are not true, and the proof is found in the classified documents that were submitted to the committee by the attorney general’s representatives,” Klinger adds. “Despite this, the committee wrote inaccurate remarks that Olmert and Olmert’s own defense counsel said.”
(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
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One Response
“The system” has clearly decided that enough is enough with Olmert. He has been let out of jail despite having breached prison rules and now his old friend the President has within 72 hours of his release waived all the early release conditions the, in any event, biased Parole Board set. Olmert is a common crook and that is how he should have been treated.