Thursday, May 1, 2008 Police summon PM for urgent questioning under caution

Police summon PM for urgent questioning under caution
By Haaretz Service Last update - 22:21 01/05/2008
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/979901.html

The police have summoned Prime Minister Ehud Olmert for urgent questioning
under caution, Channel 2 reported Thursday.

According to the Channel 2 report, it is still not clear which of the
ongoing criminal investigations involving the prime minister the police will
focus on in their interrogation, to begin Friday.

Questioning under caution usually indicates that police believe their
interrogation could result in an indictment.

The prime minister is facing three separate police investigations - the
"Investment Center" affair, "The house on Cremieux Street" case and
suspicions that he helped advance the interests of customers of a former
business partner, Attorney Uri Messer.

The interviews will take place over the next 48 hours, and will begin in
Olmert's house in Jerusalem Friday morning.

The affair of the house on Cremieux Street in Jerusalem is the least severe
of the criminal charges against Olmert. According to the examination carried
out by the state comptroller, Olmert received a discount of $330,000 on an
apartment he bought for $1.2 million. It will not be easy to prove a
criminal charge here.

The second affair concerns a long series of political appointments that
Olmert and his bureau made in the Small Business Authority, when he was
serving as minister of industry and trade. Here there is a suspicion of
buying power with money.

In the third affair, the gravest of the three, Olmert is suspected of a
conflict of interest when he intervened in a decision at the Industry and
Trade Ministry's Investment Center that determined that a firm was not
entitled to state benefits. After his intervention, the state transferred
tens of millions of shekels to the plant - which was represented by Olmert's
good friend and former partner, attorney Uri Messer. This case is
particularly grave because the attorney general at the time, Elyakim
Rubinstein (now a Supreme Court justice), had already warned Olmert against
intervening in decisions taken at the Investment Center when he tried to
grant benefits to a Coca-Cola plant.