Israel’s former prime minister Ehud Olmert has started his 19-month prison sentence for bribery and obstruction of justice, becoming the first Israeli premier to be imprisoned and capping a years-long legal saga that forced him to resign in 2006 during the last serious round of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.
Olmert walked into the Maasiyahu prison in central Israel hours after he released a video making a last-minute plea to Israelis. In the video, meant to salvage his legacy, he appealed to the nation to remember his peacemaking efforts as leader and denied any wrongdoing in the bribery conviction against him.
The three-and-a-half minute video, released by his office and filmed at his home a day earlier, shows Olmert saying it was a painful and strange time for him and his family and that he was paying a heavy price. He said he has accepted the sentence because “no man is above the law”.
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