The parole board of Israel’s Prison Service has granted former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert early release from prison.

Prison Service spokesman Assaf Librati says the board on Thursday granted Olmert’s request to reduce a third of his 27-month incarceration sentence. Barring unforeseen developments, he will be freed on Sunday, July 2.

Olmert was convicted in 2014 in a wide-ranging case that accused him of accepting bribes to promote a real-estate project years before he became premier in 2006.

His imprisonment capped a stunning fall from grace that ended Israel’s last serious round of peace efforts with the Palestinians and ushered in the era of Benjamin Netanyahu in 2009.

Olmert was a longtime fixture in Israel’s hawkish right wing when he began taking a dramatically more conciliatory line toward the Palestinians.
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