Ex-Israeli Premier Olmert sentenced Sydney gunman secretive, to eight months in prison defiant narcissist
Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was yesterday sentenced to eight months in prison for unlawfully accepting money from a US supporter, capping the dramatic downfall of a man who only years earlier led the country and hoped to bring about a historic peace agreement with the Palestinians.
Olmert was convicted in March in a retrial in Jerusalem District Court. The sentencing comes in addition to a six-year prison sentence he received last year in a separate bribery conviction, ensuring the end of the former premier’s political career.
Olmert’s lawyer, Eyal Rozovsky, said Olmert’s legal team was “very disappointed” by the ruling and would appeal to Israel’s Supreme Court. They were granted a 45-day stay, meaning the former Israeli leader will avoid incarceration for now.
Olmert also was given a suspended sentence of an additional eight months and fined $25,000.
A slew of character witnesses had vouched for Olmert, includ- ing former British Prime Minister Tony Blair and former Israeli Mossad chief Meir Dagan in written statements read aloud Monday. The verdict stated that it recognized Olmert’s vast contributions to Israeli society and sentenced him to less than the prosecution had demanded. Still, it ruled that “a black flag hovers over his conduct.”
Olmert was forced to resign in early 2009 amid the corruption allegations. His departure cleared the way for hard-liner Benjamin Netanyahu’s election, and subsequent peace efforts have not succeeded.
Olmert, 69, was acquitted in 2012 of a series of charges that included accepting cash-stuffed envelopes from US businessman Morris Talansky when Olmert was mayor of Jerusalem and a Cabinet minister. Olmert was found to have received about $600,000 from Talansky during his term as mayor, and additional amounts in cash during his term as a Cabinet minister, but a court did not find evidence the money had been used for unlawful personal reasons or illegal campaign financing.
Talansky, an Orthodox Jew from New York’s Long Island, had testified the money was spent on expensive cigars, firstclass travel and luxury hotels, while insisting he received nothing in return.
The acquittal on the most serious charges at the time was seen as a major victory for Olmert, who denied being corrupt. He was convicted only on a lesser charge of breach of trust for steering job appointments and contracts to clients of a business partner, and it raised hopes for his political comeback.
But Olmert’s former office manager and confidant Shula Zaken later became a state’s witness, offering diary entries and tape recordings of conversations with Olmert about illicitly receiving cash, leading to a retrial. In the recordings, Olmert is heard telling Zaken not to testify in the first trial so she would not incriminate him.
The man who took 18 people hostage at a Sydney cafe last year was educated and erratic, secretive about his own life and public about his many grievances, and a self-obsessed fabulist who grew increasingly defiant as he edged closer to launching his deadly attack, lawyers told an inquest.
The details of Man Monis’ life and death are being examined at a coroner’s inquest into December’s siege at the Lindt Cafe, in which a shotgun-wielding Monis took customers and workers captive and made a series of demands, including that he be delivered a flag of the Islamic State group. The standoff ended when police stormed the cafe. Monis was killed, along with two hostages.
“This is not a normal investigation — it is grappling with questions of national significance,” New South Wales state Coroner Michael Barnes told the court. “Was Monis a so-called lone wolf prosecuting an ISIS-inspired terrorist act, or was he a deranged individual pursuing some personal, private grievance in a public man- ner? They are real questions we must try and answer if an explanation for the siege is to be forthcoming and strategies to avoid a repeat are to be developed.”
In their opening address, lawyers assisting the coroner painted the 50-year-old Iranianborn Monis as a man who was both compliant and contrarian when it came to authority. He dutifully registered his many name changes, filed his taxes and applied for police approval ahead of his frequent protests. But those protests were often dramatic, with Monis chaining himself to buildings and staging a hunger strike. He obsessively pursued perceived injustices against various authorities, in one instance flying to New Zealand and returning immediately for the sole purpose of proving he was being treated unreasonably by customs officials.
“He could be plausible, courteous and controlled,” lawyer Sophie Callan said. “But he was also almost entirely consumed in his own self-importance and when challenged, his self-control would occasionally slip and his reaction was disproportionate.”
The lawyers also described Monis as a narcissist with a flair for the grandiose, his lies, halftruths and impossible-to-verify tales both large and small — from bragging about being an Iranian spy to shaving 12 years off his age upon meeting his future wife. But the lawyers dismissed any suggestions that Monis was severely mentally ill.
“Mr. Monis, as we shall see, unquestionably had at stages in his life some mental health issues, but I say at the outset that any such issues appear to be modest,” lawyer Jeremy Gormly told the court. “Mental illness may not provide a full answer to the questions about his motivations for the siege.”
The inquest — a court-like proceeding convened after unusual deaths in Australia — is aimed at determining how the hostages and Monis died, how authorities responded and whether the siege could have been prevented. It is being conducted in segments throughout the year.