Uri Messer, onetime friend and confidante of former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, testified in court Tuesday that he had stored envelopes containing some $300,000 in unreported money given him by Olmert. Now a witness for the prosecution in the Talansky Affair, in which Olmert is accused of receiving hundreds of thousands of illicit dollars from foreign donors, Messer said that he had been given the envelopes by Olmert himself, or by Shula Zaken, his former office manager. “She would tell me that she had another 'deposit,'” Messer testified. “I received cash dollars, usually in an envelope.”
Messer said he had no idea of the source of the money, and that he put the envelopes in a safe in his office in order to do a favor for his friend. He did not charge for the service, he said. “You, the court, call it a slush fund,” he testified. “To me, it was money that was given to me for safekeeping. That is how I saw my involvement in the affair the entire time.”
Messer added that on occasion he would come to Olmert's house, at the former Prime Minister's request, bearing one of the envelopes. “Usually it was for small amounts, like one or two thousand dollars,” he said. “I would bring it to him personally. I would go through security, bring him the envelope, and he would thank me.”
The prosecuting attorney asked Messer if he suspected the source of the money. In response, he said that he did not, but that he had had occasional discussions with the donor himself. “He told me that he had given money to Olmert. He didn't say when, and he didn't mention tens of thousands of dollars. Since I received the money from Zaken and he said he had given the money to Olmert, I put two and two together,” and understood what the source of the funds were, he said. Messer said he decided to return all the money to Olmert in February 2006, after the first reports surfaced of the numerous scandals in which Olmert was alleged to be implicated .
Commenting on Messer's testimony, Amir Dan, a spokesperson for the former Prime Minister, said “today it has been made clear that there was never any 'secret slush fund,' nor anything like it. The money was held in confidence by Olmert's attorney, as is customary with attorneys.”
