Former Israeli Leader Indicted on Bribery Charge

JERUSALEM — Ehud Olmert, who resigned as prime minister of Israel in 2008 amid corruption charges, was indicted on Thursday for allegedly taking bribes in the construction of a huge residential complex while he was mayor of Jerusalem.

Mr. Olmert, who is on trial for three unrelated counts of fraud and breach of trust from before his tenure as prime minister, has denied all wrongdoing. In the newest and by far most serious indictment, he is accused of accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes to smooth the way for construction of the Holyland, an enormous hulk of a residential complex in southwestern Jerusalem.

When the case was first made public nearly two years ago, the presiding judge called it “one of the worst corruption affairs in Israeli history.”

The Holyland is built on a ridge with interlocking apartment buildings and one outsized tower that dominates the landscape for miles and is widely considered an eyesore. Jerusalem residents commonly call it “the monster.”

Millions of dollars are said to have changed hands to allow the project to go up in a hurry and to grow to more than 12 times the height granted by the original permits. Mr. Olmert was mayor of Jerusalem from 1993 to 2003 and was then the government minister with oversight over the Israel Lands Authority.

In the Holyland indictment, Mr. Olmert is one of a number of people listed. The others include another former Jerusalem mayor, Uri Lupolianski, and the former director of the Israel Lands Authority, Yaakov Efrati.

Mr. Olmert became acting prime minister in early 2006 when Ariel Sharon suffered a pair of debilitating strokes. He ran shortly thereafter as head of the Kadima Party and was elected prime minister. He resigned in September 2008 after police recommended he be indicted in several cases of corruption. He became acting prime minister until elections in early 2009 when Benjamin Netanyahu of Likud formed the current government.

Mr. Olmert’s other indictments relate to allegations that he accepted envelopes of cash from an American businessman and that he double-billed Israeli organizations for trips abroad, all before his election as prime minister.