Israel's ex-PM Ehud Olmert released from prison

Published July 02, 2017

FILE: Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert speaks to the media after a hearing at the Supreme Court in Jerusalem December 29, 2015. (Reuters)

Israel's Prison Service says former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has been released after serving time for corruption.

Spokesman Assaf Librati says Olmert was freed early Sunday morning.

Last week the parole board granted the 71-year-old Olmert early release from his 27-month corruption sentence.

Olmert was convicted in 2014 on charges of accepting bribes to promote a real-estate project in Jerusalem and obstructing justice. The charges pertained to a period when he was mayor of Jerusalem and trade minister before he became premier in 2006.

Olmert was a longtime fixture in Israel's hawkish right wing when he began taking a dramatically more conciliatory line toward the Palestinians.

His imprisonment ended the last major Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts and ushered in the era of Benjamin Netanyahu in 2009.

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