May 24, 2008	Saturday	Jamadi-ul-Awwal 18, 1429

JERUSALEM, May 23: Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was questioned by police for an hour on Friday, the second time this month that investigators have quizzed him over allegations he took bribes from an American businessman.

Investigators from the National Fraud Unit turned up early for a previously arranged appointment at Olmert’s official residence in Jerusalem. “They questioned him for about an hour,” police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said.

The scandal, which police and judicial sources say involves hundreds of thousands of dollars in questionable cash payments over a decade from the early 1990s, broke three weeks ago when detectives moved at short notice to question Olmert on May 2.

The prime minister has faced a handful of inquiries recently into his past financial affairs as mayor of Jerusalem for 10 years until 2003 and subsequently as a cabinet minister until he succeeded the ailing Ariel Sharon as premier in early 2006.

He has withstood all those challenges and said he did nothing wrong in his dealings with New York Jewish fundraiser Morris Talansky. He has promised to step down if prosecutors can produce enough evidence to indict him.

The mass-selling Israeli daily Maariv said on Friday that police were trying to determine whether Olmert helped Talansky advance business ventures in South America. “The prime minister is convinced that as this investigation continues it will become clear that he has done nothing wrong,” Olmert’s spokesman Mark Regev said.

Talansky, who was questioned after he arrived in Israel on holiday last month, also denies wrongdoing. A court decided on Friday that he should give sworn testimony on Tuesday. Olmert’s lawyers had tried to prevent any such statement being taken.

—Reuters