An Israeli court has sentenced former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to six years in prison for bribery and fined more than A$300,000.  Ten other government officials were convicted alongside Olmert from a real estate deal that happened while he was still the Mayor of Jerusalem.

“People who receive bribes give rise to a feeling of disgust and cause the public to despise the state’s institutions,” said Judge David Rozen of the Tel Aviv district court.  “He who offers a bribe is corrupt and he who accepts a bribe is no better than a traitor,” he admonished.

But Rozen gave Olmert until 1 September to report to prison, giving him plenty of time to take the case to the country’s high court. 

“He did not take a bribe.  He did not receive a bribe.  He sees himself as innocent, and it is with those feelings that he will be going to the Supreme Court to appeal,” said Olmert’s lawyer Eli Zohar.

But the Tel Aviv court already rejected Olmert’s account of the “Holyland Case”, one of Israel’s biggest corruption scandals.  Prosecutors say developers paid officials to rezone a hotel into a residential project – one that it turns out that many Israelis think is pretty ugly.