His chutzpa knows no end
Tel Aviv District Court Judge David Rozen on Sunday rejected former prime minister Ehud Olmert's request to leave the country on business for four days on the grounds that he has been convicted and sentenced to jail time for bribery.
Olmert requested to travel from June 9-13 in order to facilitate various business deals including foreign investment in Israel.
Olmert's former chief-architect in Jerusalem, Uri Shitrit, made a similar request which was denied in the same opinion.
The court said that the only exception for leaving the country was special medical needs, which did not apply to either of the convicted men.
Olmert was sentenced to six years in prison for his conviction on two counts of bribery in the Holyland real estate affair last month.
The judge delayed the arrest and imprisonment of all of the Holyland defendants until September 1.In Israel, there is something known as a tzav ikuv yetzia min ha'aretz (an order to stop you from leaving the country). In most cases, you don't get one because of a criminal conviction. You get them because you owe money. Until a couple of years ago, it was difficult to find out whether you had one against you without going to the airport and trying to leave the country. Now, there's a number you can call during business hours....
I have a friend who came to Israel for a weekend 13 years ago and still cannot leave the country because of such an order - he allegedly owes money. I had another friend - who R"L passed away two years ago - who called me from the airport at 3:00 am and asked if I could convince the border guards to let him on the 1:00 am flight to New York (which had already been held for two hours) because he had an appointment in New York at 11:00 am that day for chemotherapy. He owed property tax (arnona) on an apartment he had vacated years before. I could not get him out, and eventually - at 4:00 or 5:00 am - someone who lived closer to the airport than I do brought him the money to pay the arnona (for the second time) by which time the 1:00 am flight had left and he had to wait for the first flight of the morning and miss his appointment.
But convicted felon Ehud Olmert is allowed to leave for medical reasons and has the gall to ask permission to leave for a purported 'business trip.' And you wonder why this country is so corrupt?
Labels: corruption, Ehud K. Olmert, government corruption
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 8:02 PM
1 Comments:
Don't be ridiculous. The tzav ikuv is a joke. Maybe not for Olmert because he's very visible and well-known. My husband (now ex but not at the time)had two against him--one from the Beit HaDin and one from the Family Court. Hardly slowed him down. Once it happened to me, I found out that its actually a relatively easy matter to get out via Jordan or Egypt. You can go with a group of tourists and fake passport and nobody is really checking. With a confederate to obtain a boarding pass and take it out to you without using it, its even fairly easy to leave from Ben Gurion. Although that one may not work so well once somebody using it got caught a few years ago but I'm told there are other ways.
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