Prime Minister Ehud Olmert will undergo diagnostic tests Monday for a cancerous growth in the prostate, his aides said. The growth was discovered last year just as the Prime Minister was undergoing a political crisis resulting from criticism by the Winograd Committee probe on the Second Lebanon War. He arranged a press conference and emphasized that a prime minister must be open about his health, although cancerous growth in the prostate generally is considered to be minor and easily treated.
Prime Minister Olmert announced at the time that he would undergo an operation to remove the growth when his schedule would enable him to be free, but several months later, after criticism had receded, he announced that there was no need for surgery.
The latest announcement from his office said that his doctors several weeks ago recommended a test, but no explanation was offered why the information was not released until Monday. The report comes on the same day that lawyers for Prime Minister Olmert appealed to the High Court to postpone an attempt by police to record testimony by American businessman Morris Talansky, who passed on to the Prime Minister huge amounts of cash in envelopes the past several years.