Israel's ex-president faces rape charges

JERUSALEM (AFP) - Israeli prosecutors said Sunday they will indict former president Moshe Katsav on charges including rape, in the latest act of a years-long saga that saw the politician resign in disgrace.
"Following the completion of the investigation... the attorney-general and the state prosecutor decided to indict Moshe Katsav over sexual offences against several of his employees when he acted as tourism minister and president, including charges of rape and sexual assault," said an Israeli Justice Ministry statement.
"The decision was made after the attorney-general and state prosecutor reached the conclusion that the complainants' testimony was reliable and that there is sufficient evidence for an indictment."
The statement did not say when the formal indictment would be filed against the 63-year-old father of five, but local media said it would come within days.
Katsav's attorney Zion Amir said in reaction to the decision that "we are preparing for a long struggle to prove the innocence of the former president."
The announcement marked the latest chapter in an affair that began in July 2006, when then-president Katsav filed a complaint with the attorney-general alleging a former employee was trying to blackmail him.
An investigation by Attorney-General Menahem Mazuz however resulted in the woman, referred to by Israeli media as Plaintiff A, accusing the president of raping her while she was his secretary in the late 1990s.
The accusations and the months of investigations that followed saw Katsav embroiled in the worst scandal ever to befall an Israeli leader as other women followed suit.
If convicted of rape charges, Katsav can face a jail term of up to 16 years and will become Israel's first head of state convicted of sex offences. He is already the second Israeli head of state to be forced out by scandal.
Katsav's predecessor, the late Ezer Weizman, was forced to resign in 2000 after revelations that he received around $450,000 from a French millionaire while a minister and an MP.
Amid the uproar, Katsav removed himself from duties in January 2007, following a very public row with the state prosecution. On June 29 that year, the Iranian-born president resigned from his post as part of a plea bargain that saw him face lesser charges than rape, an agreement that was slammed by women's groups.
After months of legal manoeuvring, Israel's Supreme Court on February 26, 2008 accepted the highly controversial plea deal and two days later Katsav was formally charged with sexually harassing two women, as well as performing indecent acts.
But when he went on trial on April 8, 2008, Katsav in a surprise move announced that he was withdrawing from the agreement.
"My client wants to annul the compromise agreement and fight to demonstrate his innocence," Attorney Avigdor Feldman told journalists after the hearing, which lasted less than half an hour.