Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is to face questioning on Tuesday over his suspected involvement in a financial scandal, a police spokesman said on Sunday.
He will be "questioned by three investigators on Tuesday from 9 am (0700 GMT) at his official residence in Jerusalem on the Bank Leumi affair", Mickey Rosenfeld told AFP.
Olmert faces a criminal probe into his alleged abuse of influence in the privatisation of Israel's second-largest bank when he was acting finance minister in 2005.
Following the police announcement, Olmert's office said the privatisation of Leumi Bank "was one of the most succesful privatisation moves in Israel, that led to a record sale of state-owned property."
The prime minister has kept Tuesday and Thursday entirely free for giving his testimony to police, his office said in a statement.
"The prime minister is certain that at the conclusion of the investigation it will be revealed that all the decisions he had taken in the privatisation process were professional... and he had acted cleanhandedly."
Olmert was the subject of several corruption investigations last year involving property deals and appointments.
The popularity of the man hailed as one of Israel's most able politicians when he officially assumed office in May 2006 has taken a battering as a result of last year's Lebanon war and a string of graft scandals.
These have included a sex scandal involving former president Moshe Katsav and a sexual harassment conviction of close Olmert aide Haim Ramon, who stepped down as justice minister over the charges and today is deputy prime minister.
Another investigation into alleged widescale corruption in the nation's tax authority forced the resignation of Olmert's personal secretary and close aide of 30 years, Shula Zaken.
And former finance minister Avraham Hirshson resigned from his post in early July amid a months-long police investigation over claims that millions of dollars were embezzled from a labour union he once headed.
Source: AFP