News Brief

(IsraelNN.com) He may have rearranged his government in a bid to hold onto power, but Prime Minister Ehud Olmert now faces a much greater challenge than the politic machinations he has been had to deal with in recent months: According to reports, Olmert is set to be summoned in the coming weeks to a police interrogation for his role in the Bank Leumi influence-peddling scandal.

According to Yoav Yitzchak of NFC, who was the first to break the story of Olmert's alleged attempt to ensure that a political ally of his would be the one to win the right to purchase government shares of Bank Leumi – in exchange for a significant profit on a piece of real estate – police are to question Olmert in mid-July. Olmert is seeking to postpone the interrogation by at least a week because of an official state event scheduled for that week. Originally, Olmert had been set for questioning this past Friday, but his lawyers asked for a delay then as well. The interrogation will take place at Olmert's home, the sources said.

Police said that their investigations so far had yielded a great deal of evidence in all the cases of suspected corruption, but that the Bank Leumi scandal was the most advanced of the investigations – so much so, that Olmert will be interrogated “under warning,” with the presupposition by interrogators that a criminal act indeed took place. However, they said, the Carmia case is considered a far more important and potentially damaging one for Olmert. Future police interrogation sessions awaiting the Prime Minister involve illegal appointments he made at the Small Business Administration when he was Minister of Industry, Trade and Labor under former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, and influence peddling at the Government Investment Center when he was director there., after leaving the Jerusalem Municipality.