Bat Aviv District Court Judge David Rosen announced this evening (Tuesday) that the verdict for the Holyland trial convicts, except for Shula Zaken, will be handed down on May 13.
Another hearing was held in court today during the sentencing arguments phase, and the lawyers for the convicted presented their arguments. In addition to the lawyers, former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert also spoke - who said:
""In recent days, I have decided what not to say here. My decision is that, for understandable reasons of respect for the place, the court, and my lord, I will keep my words extremely brief and not shout the cry that wants to be released from my mouth... I will not speak about the malice, not about the personal injuries, not about the heavy burden that a man, his wife, his children, and his grandchildren have to bear for years, day by day, hour by hour. Nor about the difficult days of managing the city of Jerusalem, when every day a bus or a cafe is blown up or people are torn to pieces in the streets and you have to pick up the pieces and take control of the population and try to calm the spirits and instill confidence in the people and faith in the State of Israel.
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""The only correct way I can appeal the wrong decision is to the Supreme Court, which will see the full picture and come to the conclusion that I never took a bribe.".
""What are you talking about?""
This morning, Olmert continued to insist that he had never asked for or accepted a bribe, neither for himself nor for his associates. "Naturally, the court's decision was a very severe shock to me," he said. "I know more than anyone else that this decision is based on a fundamental error that is not correct.".
while The prosecution is demanding that Olmert be sentenced to at least 6 years in prison. The defense attorney - attorney Eli Zohar - criticized this and mentioned cases in which local authority heads received prison sentences of one to one and a half years for bribery offenses, and asked to settle for only 18 months.
In addition to actual imprisonment, the prosecution demanded that Olmert be fined 1.2 million shekels, double the amount of the bribe he received according to the court's ruling. In addition, the prosecution is seeking to impose a sentence of disgrace on him.
During his remarks, the attorney argued that the amount of bribery for which Olmert was convicted, more than 500,000 shekels, "is not that significant and is not the whole story." This angered the judge: "What are you talking about? It's a huge amount. It's a very significant amount and it starts to climb higher and higher in terms of the seriousness of the offense. It's not 20,000 shekels or 50,000 shekels.".
Shula demanded half a million
Meanwhile, the evening was published inNews 2 Because former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert claims that his former chief of staff, Shula Zaken, blackmailed him.
In his last interrogation at the police station, Olmert told his interrogators about a meeting between him and Zaken, which took place after her dramatic testimony in the Holyland trial - testimony that was interrupted after what appeared to be Zaken's collapse.
Olmert claimed that his meeting with Zaken was held at her request and said that during the meeting she demanded half a million dollars from him.
According to him, he refused the demand - and this, he claims, was the reason for the beginning of the rift between the two, a rift that ended with Zaken becoming a state witness against the former prime minister.
