Israeli president signs plea bargain on sex charges (2nd Roundup)

Jun 28, 2007, 15:43 GMT

Jerusalem - Outgoing Israeli President Moshe Katsav signed a plea bargain with state prosecutors Thursday under which he will not be indicted for the rape he is accused of committing, but instead will face other charges, including committing an indecent act.

Under the terms of the deal the president will not serve time in prison or do community service, but will receive a suspended sentence and will also have to pay compensation, Attorney-General Menahem Mazuz told reporters in Jerusalem.

The announcement sparked widespread outrage in Israel, with women's advocacy groups, and attorneys representing two of those who complained against the president, saying the plea bargain sent the wrong message to victims of sexual assault.

The first woman to accuse Katsav, known only as 'A', said in a news conference in the late afternoon that the attorney-general's decision to go for a plea bargain gave 'licence and legitimacy' to sex offenders.

Katsav, 61, has protested his innocence throughout the whole affair, and his associates were quoted Thursday as saying he signed the plea bargain only to spare his family the suffering they were being put through.

The indictment against Katsav will be filed in a Jerusalem court early next week.

Katsav took leave of absence from his largely ceremonial post in January, after Mazuz first said he was contemplating filing an indictment. He was replaced by Knesset Speaker Dalia Itzik, who will remain as acting president until Katsav's newly-elected successor, Shimon Peres, is sworn in on July 15.

'The president will plead guilty to three charges, and will receive a suspended sentence and be ordered to pay compensation to the complainants,' Mazuz said Thursday.

He said most of the 10 complaints different women originally levelled against Katsav, on accusations ranging from rape to indecent assault and sexual harassment, had passed their statute of limitations, or else lacked sufficient evidence.

'The president has accepted responsibly for his actions,' Mazuz said. 'The fact is, the case was very complex and although there was still a chance of a conviction, with a plea bargain a conviction is certain even though it is more limited.'

'A' told reporters that while working in the president's residence she underwent increasing sexual harassment from Katsav, culminating in rape.

She said that before the rape, Katsav would ask her to come to work wearing a skirt with no underwear underneath, exposed himself to her, and touched her breasts.

Avigdor Feldman, one of Katsav's attorneys, told Israel Radio that the woman was lying, and insisted his client was innocent of her charges.

Defending the plea bargain against criticism, the attorney-general said he believed it to be in the public interest as it 'minimizes the harm to the institution of the presidency. It was important to spare Israel from seeing a president on trial.'

Former Israeli Justice Minister Haim Ramon was recently sentenced to community service after being found guilty of kissing an employee of the prime minister's office against her will. There was no plea bargain.

Mazuz's statement Thursday was delayed while one of the rape complainants against Katsav petitioned the Supreme Court to postpone the announcement, arguing she was legally entitled to present a formal response first. The petition failed.

Mazuz, in an unprecedented decision against an Israeli president, announced in late January that he would recommend an indictment against Katsav on the basis of four out of a total of 10 women who had filed complaints against him.

Katsav in response accused the Israeli media of conducting an 'unprecedented' campaign and 'witch hunt' against him and said the women who filed the complaints acted out of an 'urge for vengeance' because he sacked some of them and refused others the jobs they requested.

Attorney Kinneret Barashi, who represented A, described the plea bargain as a 'base agreement.'

'There is no public interest in reaching a plea bargain and reducing his sentence just because we're talking about the president, and only because we're concerned about how we'll look to the world,' she said.

She charged that the president had lied throughout the whole affair.

'All the time he claimed these things never happened, and today he's prepared to come and admit them,' she said.

Israel Radio's outspoken legal commentator, Moshe Negbi, said the plea bargain raised more questions than it answered.

'If the acts of which the president is charged are so serious - and I think they are - how is the case being closed with a suspended prison sentence?' he asked.