Following a meeting that lasted much of the day, the National Fraud Investigations Unit of the Police Department announced Sunday evening that they have decided to recommend that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert be indicted on multiple charges of bribery, fraud, breach of trust and other offenses. The recommendations were delivered to Attorney General Menachem Mazuz, who will have the final say as to whether or not to file charges against the Prime Minister.
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The recommended charges relate to two out of six corruption investigations Olmert has been the subject of - "the Talansky Envelopes Affair" and the "Olmert Tours Affair." In a third instance of suspected corruption, known as the "Investment Center Affair," the police have yet to finalize a decision in favor of indictment.
The Envelopes Affair
Police determined that they have sufficient evidence indicating that Prime Minister Olmert took bribes and was also guilty of fraud, breach of trust and additional violations of the law against money laundering. The suspicions center around envelopes of cash delivered to Olmert by American businessman Morris (Moshe) Talansky in the years preceding Olmert's ascending to the prime ministerial post. The police recommendation in the Talansky 
Police determined that they have sufficient evidence.
affair also includes charges against Olmert's former bureau chief Shula Zaken, suspected of complicity in the money transfers.
Talansky has billed himself as a supporter of Olmert who raised funds for him during Olmert's campaigns and tenures as mayor of Jerusalem. In testimony taken before a Jerusalem court, Talansky admitted to giving Olmert envelopes of cash amounting to at least $150,000 some ten years ago. He has denied any knowledge that his donations were illegal according to Israeli law. In July, the court also heard about unexplained money transfers of more than $200,000 from Talansky or Talansky-owned concerns to Olmert's lawyer, Uri Messer, in 1999.
Meanwhile, the US government has launched its own investigation into Talansky's activities, based on his testimony before the Jerusalem District Court. A grand jury in the US District Court for the Eastern District of New York has initiated inquiries.
The Olmert Tours Affair
In the Olmert Tours Affair, police recommended that charges of fraudulent receipt of goods or services in aggravated circumstances, fraud and breach of trust, as well as additional offenses be filed against Prime Minister Olmert.
Olmert is suspected of having received duplicate funding for trips abroad for himself and his family, with payments made from government coffers to Rishon Tours, a travel agency that Olmert and his family used to arrange trips abroad. Olmert then allegedly had Rishon Tours produce a separate receipt for each entity that he asked to finance the trips, as if that body were the sole sponsor. According to the details of the police investigation leaked to the media, Rishon Tours then deposited the money Olmert gained in this way into a private account the tour company established in his name.
The Olmert Tours Affair, like the Talansky investigation, centers around the years that Olmert served as the mayor of Jerusalem, from 1993-2003, as well as his term as Minister of Industry and Trade, from 2003 to 2006.
The Investment Center Affair
In April 2007 State Comptroller Micha Lindenstrauss issued a scathing report regarding Prime Minister Olmert's
Rishon Tours then deposited the money Olmert gained in this way into a private account.alleged conflict of interests in Olmert's oversight of the Ministry of Industry and Trade's Investment Center. Approximately 7.67 million NIS of government aid is suspected of having been funneled between 2000 and 2005 to businesses run by an Olmert associate in the Likud party's Central Committee.
"When Olmert served as Minister of Industry and Trade, he did not refrain from dealing with a case in which Uri Messer - his friend, former business partner and current lawyer - was involved. Messer represented an entrepreneur who requested economic benefits from the State via the Trade Ministry's Investment Center," Lindenstrauss wrote.
The Comptroller recommended that Olmert be indicted. By October of the same year, Attorney General Mazuz ordered police to open two separate criminal investigations against Olmert - one relating to the Investment Center Affair and a second regarding illegal appointments in the Small and Medium Enterprises Authority, for which then-Minister Olmert also had responsibility.
Olmert's Lawyers: 'Meaningless'
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's lawyers said Sunday that the police's recommendations to indict Olmert "have no meaning."
"The only person authorized by law to decide whether or not to press charges against the Prime Minister is the Attorney General," the lawyers declared. "He has the authority and he bears the responsibility in this matter," they added.
An Olmert media advisor commented, even before the formal announcement of the police reccommendations was made, that the police had no choice but to recommend indictment. Otherwise, the Olmert spokesman said, the police would not be able to justify before the public their "causing the fall of an incumbent Prime Minister."