JOIN USOlmert returned from a European trip on Wednesday night shortly after his successor as Jerusalem mayor, Uri Lupolianski, was arrested for his alleged involvement in the scandal over Jerusalem’s Holyland residential complex.
Israeli media said Olmert was suspected of having taken a 3.5-million-shekel (almost one-million-dollar) bribe, while police declined to comment on the reports and the court could not be reached.
Israelis riveted by the affair had awaited the court’s decision on whether to lift the gag order on naming the main suspect.Police last week also arrested a former Olmert associate, Uri Messer, and several other men suspected of bribing officials to smooth the way for the construction of the grandiose Holyland residential complex.Israel’s “real estate scandal of the century” has been splashed on the front pages, with papers running Olmert’s photograph while pointing to the gag order which had prevented the naming of a “leading public figure”.