Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has been released from prison on parole after serving two-thirds of a 27-month sentence for fraud.<\/p>\n
He was jailed in 2016 after being convicted of bribery and obstruction of justice while a trade minister.<\/p>\n
Olmert was the first former Israeli head of government to be jailed.<\/p>\n
He became prime minister in 2006 but resigned three years later when police recommended a series of charges against him.<\/p>\n
The 71-year-old did not speak to reporters as he left Maasiyahu prison in central Israel.
\nEarlier, the Israeli parole board said Olmert had undergone a “significant rehabilitation process” in prison and his behaviour had been largely “impeccable”.<\/p>\n
He is however currently being investigated by the state attorney’s office over suspicions he smuggled a chapter of a book he is writing out of prison, raising fears that it might compromise national security.<\/p>\n
There had been calls for leniency after a leaked picture of him in a hospital gown looking gaunt circulated on social media last week.<\/p>\n
He had been taken to hospital complaining of chest pains but was given the all-clear and returned to prison.<\/p>\n
In 2014, Olmert was convicted of bribery in connection with a property development dating to his period as mayor of Jerusalem between 1993 and 2003.<\/p>\n
He was also convicted of fraud, breach of trust and obstructing justice when a trade minister, in a series of separate trials, and acquitted of other charges.
\n–<\/p>\n
Source: BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has been released from prison on parole after serving two-thirds of a 27-month sentence for fraud. He was jailed in 2016 after being convicted of bribery and obstruction of justice while a trade minister. Olmert was the first former Israeli head of government to be jailed. He became prime […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[107],"tags":[3517,36,8828,3014],"class_list":["post-333368","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-international","tag-bribery","tag-corruption","tag-ehud-olmert","tag-israel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/333368","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=333368"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/333368\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=333368"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=333368"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=333368"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}