By Xinhua,
Jerusalem : Israeli State Attorney Moshe Lador said Monday that a decision will be made soon on whether to indict Prime Minister Ehud Olmert over the ongoing “money envelopes” investigation, local daily Yedioth Ahronoth reported onits website.
The evidences the prosecutors have gathered against Olmert, whois suspected of taking illicit money from American businessman Morris Talansky, will soon be submitted to Attorney General Menahem Mazuz, who will then decide whether to take Olmert to court, said Lador.
Meanwhile, Olmert’s defense team is trying to prove that Talansky, who previously testified that he gave Olmert some 150,000 U.S. dollars, much of them in envelopes, as campaign contributions before the latter became prime minister in 2006, is not a reliable witness in a five-day cross-examination of the financier, which is due to end Tuesday.
Rejecting a petition from Olmert’s lawyers to extend the current questing session, the Jerusalem District Court on Monday determined that the cross-examination will resume on Aug. 31 and will continue through Sept. 1.
Also on Monday, Olmert’s defense team submitted an urgent complaint to Mazuz, requesting a police investigation into a leak of police documents from the investigators to the media, Israeli daily Ha’aretz reported.
The complaint came after Israeli newspaper Maariv on Sunday published documents showing that Olmert told investigators for no less than 58 times that he did not know the answer to their questions neither did he remember the development of the events.
The probes-laden leader, who denies any wrongdoing in the fifth investigation against him, has said that he would resign if indicted.