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Israeli police quiz PM again in bribery case
2008-08-22
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israeli police questioned Prime Minister Ehud Olmert for the sixth time on Friday over fraud and bribery allegations, a police spokesman said. Detectives arrived at his official home around 10 a.m. (0700 GMT), in what has become a familiar weekend pattern since the scandal broke in May. It led last month to Olmert announcing he would resign once a successor is chosen. "The prime minister will be questioned by members of the National Fraud Unit at his Jerusalem residence," police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said before police arrived. Olmert will meet U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in Jerusalem next week as she and President George W. Bush struggle to reach some form of accord to create a Palestinian state before Bush leaves the White House in January. Olmert's resignation as prime minister, which could take effect as early as mid-September but could also be delayed by further weeks and months, has been a blow to the halting, nine-month-old U.S.-sponsored peace process. The prime minister, suspected of taking bribes from an American businessman and of making false travel expense claims, could step aside immediately after his centrist Kadima party votes in a leadership election on September 17. A second round of voting may be required a week later if neither of the frontrunners, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and Transport Minister Shaul Mofaz, fail to secure 40 percent. But, Olmert could remain prime minister while his successor as party leader works to secure a new parliamentary mandate for what will inevitably be a fractious coalition. Olmert has vowed to pursue talks with the Palestinians and Turkish-mediated negotiations with Syria until his last day in office. But rival politicians have said he lacks the mandate to commit Israel to any deals. Opinion polls show Livni, who has a clear edge in the Kadima party race to replace Olmert, running almost neck-and-neck with rightist Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu should snap parliamentary elections be called. On the Palestinian side, President Mahmoud Abbas also faces doubt over his mandate, with the Gaza Strip controlled by his Hamas Islamist enemies for the past year. Few analysts believe Rice can secure a major breakthrough that would set Palestinians on a fast track to statehood. But many are reluctant to rule out that the two sides will, for a variety of personal and domestic political reasons, comply with Bush's exhortations and agree to some formal, limited accord. Olmert has faced numerous investigations into his financial affairs from his 10-year stint as mayor of Jerusalem, ending in 2003, and then as a cabinet minister until he succeeded the ailing Ariel Sharon as prime minister in early 2006. (Writing by Joseph Nasr, Editing by Alastair Macdonald and Michael Winfrey)
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