JERUSALEM/ ISRAEL: Israeli President Katsav plea bargains to avoid jail time on sex crime charges

Record ID: 741768

  • Title: JERUSALEM/ ISRAEL: Israeli President Katsav plea bargains to avoid jail time on sex crime charges
  • Date: 28th June 2007
  • Summary: CLOSE OF KATSAV
  • Embargoed: 13th July 2007 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Topics: Domestic Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVACGZA69ZZ1RDTPYBQJHWBROG8O
  • Story Text: Israel President Moshe Katsav pleads guilty to sex crime charges and agrees to a suspended sentence. The President is also expected to step down in coming days, before his term ends next month. Israeli President Moshe Katsav pleaded guilty on Thursday (June 28) to committing sexual crimes against women employees in a plea bargain that will keep him out of jail, Israel's attorney-general said.
    Under the deal, Attorney-General Menachem Mazuz retreated from his stated intention to charge Katsav with rape but said the president, whose term expires next month, would resign and that "shame will accompany him forever".
    "Eventually, after negotiations which took place in the past few weeks, mainly in the last two weeks, we have reached an agreement, which was signed on a few minutes ago by the president, according to which an indictment will be filed against President Katsav which includes offences of indecent assault by using means of pressure, which is a criminal offence. We are talking about a criminal offence or an indictment which attribute to the president a chain of indecent assaults through a long period of time," Mazuz told a news conference, insisting he had not given a special break to a public figure.
    The unprecedented case against an Israeli head of state has stirred powerful emotions in a country where women's groups have long complained that authorities shrug off sexual harassment in workplaces.
    As part of the arrangement, which Mazuz said Katsav had signed, the president pleaded guilty to charges he committed a string of indecent sexual acts against one woman who worked for him and sexual harassment of another female employee.
    Mazuz said Katsav, who could have faced a maximum seven years in jail for the offences, would receive a suspended sentence and pay compensation to the women.
    "He, in accordance with the plea bargain will admit by the (charges) maintained in the indictment as an act of admission and claim of responsibility. The punishment we agreed upon is a suspended sentence and and will be ordered to compensate the complainants," Mazuz said.
    Israeli news reports said Katsav would hand in his resignation later in the day and it would then go into effect within 48 hours.
    The Justice Ministry said in January it planned to accuse Katsav of raping an ex-aide and sexually assaulting three other women who worked for him.
    But Mazuz said prosecutors concluded that pressing ahead with the original charges would have led to "not inconsequential problems of proof and evidence" during trial.
    One of Katsav's lawyers, Zion Amir, told Reuters that the most serious charges against Katsav were dropped.
    "Well, we can say that everything is finished up to now. The whole indictment, the original indictment was erased - was cancelled. Most, the great majority of the accusations are not existing anymore. What remains are very minor deeds that the President took responsibility on it - like very minor sexual offences. It's nothing like we heard, or we saw during the last year in the media," Amir said.
    Katsav has been on a leave of absence from his largely ceremonial post since plans to indict him were announced in January.
    Born in Iran in 1945, Katsav immigrated with his family to Israel in 1951. At age 24 he became the country's youngest mayor and went on to serve in the legislature and hold a number of cabinet posts as a member of the right-wing Likud party.
    Parliament elected him president in 2000 in an upset victory over then Labour Party member Shimon Peres.
    Peres, now with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's centrist Kadima party, won election earlier this month as Katsav's successor.

    Ends
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