Israeli PM Olmert charged in “holocaust” fraud

[Anonymous]

NEW BILL-SCAM RAP MAY BE NAIL IN PM'S COFFIN

By ANDY SOLTIS

Posted: 4:08 am
July 12, 2008

Israel's prime minister scammed his country's revered Holocaust memorial, a charity for disabled children and other groups out of $100,000 in a brazen double-billing scheme, investigators said yesterday.

They said Ehud Olmert personally ran the fraud and used the money to finance lavish family trips abroad.

One law-enforcement official said Olmert would have been arrested already if he weren't prime minister.

The dramatic new charges sharply expanded the three-month probe and greatly increase the likelihood that Olmert will be indicted and forced from office.

Police revealed the new allegations after questioning the prime minister, for the third time, yesterday in what they described as a "tense" two-hour confrontation.

They turned the focus of the investigation to trips that Olmert took with his wife, Aliza, and children before he became prime minister in 2006, when he was mayor of Jerusalem and a cabinet minister.

Olmert told detectives he financed the vacations through frequent-flier miles he accrued on his many foreign trips, including speaking tours of the United States.

But investigators suspect the real source was nearly $100,000 he amassed in a special bank account arranged with an Israeli travel agency, Rishon Tours.

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