Reply #61: Oddities galore

[Emit]

So sorry for going off topic here, but I just find this bolded statement below in this article really odd.

It's an article detailing Olmert being under investigation for selling his house to US billionaire Daniel Abrams, one of the two persons noted in the post above that Olmert wanted to buy Bank Leumi.

Attorney: 'Olmert Jerusalem home sale was strictly kosher'

By Uri Blau, Haaretz Correspondent, and Reuters

Former justice minister Ya'akov Ne'eman, who brokered Ehud Olmert's 2004 sale of his home to an offshore company controlled by an American billionaire, said Wednesday that the disputed deal was "strictly Kosher."

State Comptroller Micha Lindenstrauss is looking into the sale of Acting Prime Minister Olmert's house in Jerusalem to an offshore company registered in the British Virgin Islands. His lawyers told Haaretz that the man behind this company is the American billionaire Daniel Abrams, who has made contributions in the past to Olmert and other politicians.

~snip~

The comptroller also plans to look into Olmert's ties to Abrams, who contributed NIS 193,000 to Olmert ahead of Olmert's campaign in the Jerusalem mayoral elections. Lindenstrauss is already investigating a $120,000 contribution from Abrams in 2004 to Shimon Peres' campaign for the Labor Party primaries last November.

... Olmert did report the sale to the state comptroller, but failed to inform him that the company which purchased the house belonged to Abrams.

On Wednesday, Ne'eman, a prominent attorney who was justice minister and later finance minister under then-prime minister Benjamin Netanyahun in the late 1990s, told Army Radio:

"The sale was made at market value. This deal was strictly Kosher. The intrusion of this deal into an election campaign is, in my view, an illegal attempt to harm a public figure."

~snip~

Asked about the fact that Abrams lives abroad and not in Israel, Ne'eman replied "Everyone in the United States understands that a day will come that the Messiah will come, and apartment prices will rise greatly, and therefore it's worthwhile to invest in Jerusalem housing."

~snip~

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=685607&contrassID=1&subContrassID=7