Last update - 00:00 10/06/2007
State Control Cmte. may subpoena PM to discuss criminal allegations
By Zvi Zrahiya, Haaretz Correspondents
Knesset State Control Committee Chairman MK Zevulun Orlev (National Religious Party) intends to subpoena Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to appear before the panel if he fails to attend a meeting scheduled for Monday dealing with criminal suspicions against him.
The prime minister is suspected of illicitly arranging investment opportunities for his associates while heading an "investment center".
With a subpoena, Orlev would be exercising a law that allows the committee to issue a warrant requiring anyone being probed by the committee to appear before it.
The Prime Minister's Office said Sunday that there are no changes in the prime minister's schedule, but the general sense emanating from the Prime Minister's Office is that Olmert is not planning to attend Monday's session.
Orlev stressed that the date of the discussion was previously coordinated with the Prime Minister's Office and that he even received a written confirmation of the prime minister's attendance. The panel's members were shocked on Saturday when they first learned that Olmert's arrival was not likely.
Olmert skipped the committee's meeting a month ago, even though he himself had called the meeting in order to demand that the State Comptroller investigate the alleged abuse of power he had been accused of.
In October 2006, Olmert also failed to show up at the committee's session on the comptroller's report regarding political appointments made by Olmert while he was Minister of Industry, Trade and Labor. At the time, Olmert said that he had an urgent security meeting.
The Knesset State Control Committee scheduled the meeting in wake the of the comptroller's report, released in April, which recommended that a criminal investigation be launched against Olmert' due to his allegedly fraudulent involvement in the investment center affair.
Senior officials in the Justice Ministry have said lately they believe that the police will launch an investigation against the prime minister.