Zaken goes public with details on Olmert’s misconduct

Former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was knee-deep in corruption, his former bureau chief Shula Zaken told associates on Friday, a day after providing police with new information on the former premier’s alleged misconduct.

Zaken’s decision to spill the beans on Olmert’s culpability was apparently motivated by the state’s decision to forgo a plea bargain that would have had her testify as a state witness in exchange for a reduced sentence.

According to a Channel 2 report, Zaken told her close associates that Olmert misused funds that he had received from American businessman Morris Talansky (the Talansky affair) and that the former premier was personally involved in the double-billing scheme his bureau ran (the Rishon Tours affair). Olmert was acquitted on both counts in 2012, prompting the state to appeal the verdict.

Zaken also said Olmert tried to derail her efforts to plead out the case during the early phases of the ongoing Holyland trial, where both she and Olmert were named defendants over the role they had in approving a controversial housing project in Jerusalem during the 1990s — when Olmert was mayor of Jerusalem — and the early part of the last decade

Referring to the Rishon Tours affair, Zaken said Olmert was behind the decision to defraud various Jewish groups that invited him on speaking tours and that he had no qualms about issuing fake invoices to have his family join him.

“He saw all the tickets; he instructed us to issue two separate invoices [for the same ticket] so that his family’s airfare would be paid for; we would present him with a number of different organizations, and he would say, ‘You charge the full amount from this organization and $1,500 from that organization, and charge nothing from that organization. He considered it very important to have his children and anyone else who wanted to join him on his trips be able to do so. He figured he could upgrade to first class using this scheme.”

Zaken said the funds that originated with Talansky were not declared as legitimate campaign contributions and were ultimately used as a “personal fund that he used to buy tuxedoes, pens and cigars. We even used this fund to attend a private conference. It was used for personal matters. It all originated with cash-stuffed envelopes; his children’s tuition was paid using cash.”

Zaken also said Olmert orchestrated a 500,000 shekel ($144,000) transaction from the late state witness Shmuel Dechner to Olmert’s brother Yossi, who was in dire financial straits.

“He asked Dechner to help Yossi; Dechner called me and said ‘Tell Olmert that what he had asked for was carried out.’ And there I was summoned to court three times a week because of cases that had nothing to do with me.”

Referring to Olmert’s acquittal in the Talansky and the Rishon Tours affairs, Zaken lamented, “He gets acquitted but I get convicted.”

Zaken’s attorney, Ofer Bartal, attacked the state’s decision to forgo a plea bargain, saying prosecutors missed an opportunity to find out what really happened in Olmert’s bureau. Bartal said Zaken wanted “the facts to be made part of the official court record.” He stressed that the new information could be reconciled with her earlier testimony. When she took the stand in court, she talked about her own conduct, but when she approached prosecutors with new information last week, she referred to the conduct of others.

Despite the state’s decision, Zaken could still ask the judge to amend her testimony, although Zaken is unlikely to pursue this path. Zaken could end up testifying again if government watchdogs decide to petition the High Court of Justice and ask it to intervene on her behalf.

Olmert’s defense team went on the attack over the weekend. In a statement issued by Olmert’s lawyers, they accused Zaken of spreading “a whole host of vicious lies that even the State Attorney’s Office wouldn’t buy and which were flatly rejected by prosecutors. Because Zaken wants to escape justice she has resorted to action that reflects on her predicament but we do not want to lock horns with Zaken or to publicly debate her.”

Former State Comptroller Micha Lindenstrauss said that the information Zaken told police “was consistent with what was unearthed during our investigations; we called those documents ‘The Zaken Diaries’; there was nothing new in what she told the police, which had all the material at their disposal.”