Police quiz Olmert on suspected corruption

Police questioned Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert yesterday over suspected corruption just as he appeared to have won a reprieve from a Lebanon war inquiry key to his political future and peace moves with Palestinians.

Israeli newspapers said a commission examining the 2006 Lebanon war, a conflict seen by many Israelis as a mistake, would not call on Mr Olmert to resign despite its criticism in an interim report in April of his decision to launch the campaign.

At Mr Olmert's home, police questioned him for five hours over suspicions that he tried, as Finance Minister in 2005, to tailor a sale offer for state-owned Bank Leumi to favour a friend, who ultimately never bid on Israel's second biggest bank.

Mr Olmert has denied any wrongdoing in the case. After fraud squad investigators left the Prime Minister's residence, a police spokesman said they would return there tomorrow to question him again.