Region | Palestinian Territories
Olmert lawyers question US businessman
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's lawyers cross-examined on Thursday a US businessman whose damaging portrait of a politician with his hand out for cash stands at the centre of a corruption case.
- Reuters
- Published: 00:06 July 18, 2008
Occupied Jerusalem: Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's lawyers cross-examined on Thursday a US businessman whose damaging portrait of a politician with his hand out for cash stands at the centre of a corruption case.
"I never gave a false answer," Morris Talansky said at the District Court in occupied Jerusalem about his questioning by police and his previous appearance on the witness stand in May.
Praising Olmert as someone worthy of support, Talansky, a New York-based fund-raiser for various Israeli organisations, had testified he had given $150,000 (about Dh551,074) in cash-stuffed envelopes to the former occupied Jerusalem mayor over a 15-year period.
Both Olmert and Talansky have denied any wrongdoing.
Olmert, who has been playing up prospects for peace with the Palestinians as he clings to office, has described the funds as legal contributions to election campaigns before he became prime minister in 2006. He has said he would resign if indicted.
"I don't believe I invented stories," said Talansky, 75.
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