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Israeli President Rivlin Rejects Former PM Olmert’s Pardon Request
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by JNS.org
Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. Photo: Maxine Dovere.
JNS.org – A pardon request filed by incarcerated former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was rejected Monday by President Reuven Rivlin.
In the rejection, Rivlin noted that the special circumstances of Olmert’s conviction in two separate corruption scandals, including his service as a premier, had already been accounted for in his sentencing.
Olmert’s attorneys had argued in the Jan. 2017 request that the former leader had “suffered enough” and “the time has come to end [his] suffering…as an act of mercy.”
Rivlin’s rejection comes two weeks after Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked filed a request for Olmert to be released early, in spite of Shaked’s own ministry advising against such a move.
Following the rejection of his request, Olmert will be obligated to complete the remainder of his 26-month sentence, which he began in Feb. 2016.
Olmert was the first-ever Israeli head of state to be incarcerated.
