Attorney General Menachem Mazuz declined a request by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's attorneys that he open a criminal investigation into State Comptroller Micha Lindenstrauss, legal officials said on Tuesday.

In a first-of-a-kind request, attorneys Eli Zohar and Roi Blecher had written to Mazuz Monday asking that Lindenstrauss be probed for allegedly abusing his office's powers - a crime that carries a maximum sentence of three years in prison.

Several of the existing criminal investigations against Olmert, as well as others that Mazuz is considering opening, originated in reports by Lindenstrauss that detailed irregularities in the prime minister's actions.

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"You are hereby requested to view this letter as a complaint against the state comptroller ... and to order the opening of a criminal investigation against him," the lawyers wrote. "For he is the one who broke the law, both by his systematic leakage of comptroller's reports and by his mistreatment of the prime minister, while neglecting the basic rules of fairness and integrity that apply to every civil servant."

"The state comptroller's complaint against the prime minister," they continued, referring to his recent report on Olmert's purchase of a house on Jerusalem's Cremieux Street, "is hypocritical, a pretense of innocence, coming from someone who pretends to act like a fair and responsible state comptroller whose audits are substantive, but who in fact is guided by considerations of hunger for publicity, power and honor. The comptroller decided to transfer this matter to your office [for possible criminal investigation] in bad faith and solely out of media considerations."

Lindenstrauss declined to respond to the letter, though sources in his office said he was shocked. The Justice Ministry said merely that "the prime minister's request will be answered in the accepted fashion."

Off the record, however, ministry officials were contemptuous of Olmert's demand that Lindenstrauss be investigated, saying they could not imagine a situation in which Mazuz would order such a probe ¬ a move that could spark a constitutional crisis, or at the very least serious legal complications. Moreover, they said, Olmert is not accusing Lindenstrauss of an obviously criminal act, such as a violent crime, but is rather complaining about the way the comptroller executed his statutory duties.

MK Zevulun Orlev (National Religious Party), the chairman of the Knesset State Control Committee, backed Lindenstrauss yesterday and accused the prime minister of breaking the democratic rules. "Olmert's behavior toward the comptroller is an attempt to stamp out the battle against government corruption, of which Lindenstrauss is one of the leaders, and the prime minister would do better to accept the comptroller's findings and draw the necessary conclusions, like any other public servant", Orlev continued, adding that his committee would give the comptroller full support.

MK Zahava Gal-On (Meretz) said that Olmert "is losing his cool. From the position of the one being investigated, he seeks to injure the investigator ¬ the comptroller ¬ and threatens the law enforcement and auditing agencies. This is more spin from the school of Olmert, who is seeking to end the criminal investigations against him and [suppress] his responsibility for the [Second Lebanon] War."