Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and his wife, Aliza, were both questioned on Friday over a 2004 housing deal that is still being investigated, police spokesperson Micky Rosenfeld said.
The premier, who is under investigation in six separate cases, and his wife were questioned separately over their purchase of the house, Rosenfeld said.
Police suspect the contractor who sold the house slashed the price by hundreds of thousands of dollars. Media reports say Olmert, who at the time was trade and industry minister, is alleged to have used his connections to secure building rights for the contractor on another project.
Olmert (62) insists he is innocent of the allegations of wrongdoing in the 13 years before he took office in 2006, when he also served as mayor of Jerusalem.
But he announced on July 30 that he would step down after his centrist Kadima party holds an internal leadership election in mid-September.
Friday’s questioning was the seventh since allegations emerged in May that Olmert had accepted funds illegally from wealthy United States financier Morris Talansky to finance his political campaigns and his lifestyle.
Talansky testified in May to having given Olmert about $150 000, but he later faced a blistering cross-examination with the premier’s lawyers accusing him of making contradictory statements and of lying.
A Jerusalem court on Friday accepted a request by Talansky’s lawyers to postpone further testimony he had been scheduled to give on Sunday and Monday.
Talansky’s lawyers said their client wanted to avoid incriminating himself in a grand jury investigation being conducted against him in New York. — AFP
