Tel Aviv – The State Prosecutor’s Office has decided not to open a criminal investigation against former prime minister Ehud Olmert over an alleged leak of classified information.
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The announcement comes some six months after the prosecution police to investigate whether Olmert had committed a criminal offense while incarcerated at Maasiyahu Prison in Ramle while serving a 27-month sentence for bribery and corruption.
The investigation centered around the former prime minister’s autobiography, which he worked on while in jail and apparently touches on sensitive security issues.
One of Olmert’s attorneys was apprehended with a chapter of the book dealing with a top secret security-related incident that the censor has banned in the past for publication. Olmert was prime minister when Israel attacked a nuclear facility at Deir ez-Zor in Syria in 2007.
At the time, the prosecution said police would investigate whether Olmert transferred classified information to unauthorized parties. Olmert was warned by the prosecution on several occasions that the leak of classified information could cause serious damage to state security, however his attorneys rejected the charges, saying the the book had been submitted in its entirety to the censor.
Olmert was released from jail in July shortly after the charges surfaced with the parole board reducing his sentence by third for good behavior.