Attorney General Menachem Mazuz says the investigation files into various actions of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert are in their "final stages." Mazuz adds that decisions whether to open criminal investigations will be made soon.
Mazuz's office supplied this information in response to a query by Labor MK Ophir Pines-Paz.
Justice Ministry officials say that, contrary to some public speculation, no decisions on these matters have yet been made - despite the fact that the State Comptroller made his opinion known on at least two of them several months ago.
The Four Investigations
Among other things, Olmert is under investigation for his role in the privatization of Bank Leumi. Mazuz said that authority for this case has been assigned to State Prosecutor Eran Shendar. Olmert, suspected of using his influence as Finance Minister to help two friends who were interested in purchasing shares in the bank, was to have been questioned regarding this matter last week. The date was postponed, however, because of the Prime Minister's tight schedule.
A second case is the matter known as the Investment Center case. State Comptroller Micha Lindenstrauss recommended five months ago that Olmert be indicted, explaining at the time, "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 partner and current lawyer - was involved. Messer represented an entrepreneur who requested economic benefits from the State via the Trade Ministry's Investment Center."
Mazuz reported this week that regarding the Investment Center case, five months after the State Comptroller's recommendations, "we are now in the final stages of considering this matter at meetings headed by the Attorney General."
Another investigation concerns Olmert's purchase of an apartment on Cremeiux St. in Jerusalem. He received a $330,000 discount from the builder of the project in the capital's ritzy German Colony; it is suspected that the discount was actually a bribe from the builder in exchange for Olmert's expedition of municipal construction permits. Here, as well, Comptroller Lindenstrauss has recommended to Attorney General Mazuz that a criminal investigation be opened on the case. Mazuz says the case is in its "final decision stages following the completion of the check of the matter."
A fourth case involves alleged political appointments made by Olmert as Trade Minister in the Small Business Administration.
"We are aware, of course, of the public aspects of these matters and the need to reach decisions quickly," Mazuz's office said, "but this cannot come at the expense of a careful and precise consideration of the matter. We are therefore making an effort to rush the treatment of these cases, and we assume that the Attorney General's decisions in the various cases will be made very soon."
The Investigations and the Uprootings
One widespread opinion is that Mazuz will not want to bring about the indictment of a Prime Minister who is about to embark on a diplomatic process that could lead to Israel's withdrawal from Judea and Samaria - and that this is precisely why Olmert is taking this path. MK Tzvi Hendel (National Union), who accused Ariel Sharon of carrying out the Disengagement in order to avoid being prosecuted for various fiscal crimes, wrote this week as follows:
"Olmert, Sharon's great admirer - Sharon brought him from the lowest levels of politics to the Prime Minister's chair - learned the 'etrog' lesson well. [Political commentator Amnon Abromovitch said several years ago that the media was treating Sharon as carefully as one treats an etrog fruit on Sukkot, in order that he not be toppled before carrying out the Disengagement - ed.] In his destructive distress, he knows that only by expelling Jews and uprooting them from their land will he be protected from shameful banishment. This is exactly what Sharon knew when he implemented his cruel expulsion from Gush Katif. Now, as then, the deeper the investigations, the deeper the uprooting."
The Legal Forum of the Land of Israel calls upon Attorney General Mazuz to call upon the Prime Minister to leave office in light of the three-pronged investigation directed at him. Forum Director Nachi Eyal released this statement:
"Mr. Olmert must show leadership and suspend himself from office until he cleanses himself from the accumulating suspicions against him. The country deserves more than a leader who lives in a maze of investigators and lawyers. The average citizen asks himself, 'When does a serial investigatee have time to run the country?' Inside, we feel the nagging question as to which issues take up more of his time - national security, or evidence regarding Cremeiux?"