Former Israeli President Charged With Rape and Other Sexual Offences

Israel's former president Moshe Katsav was today charged with rape and other sexual offenses involving female employees in his offices, the most serious charges ever brought against an Israeli leader.

Katsav, 63, resigned the presidency in 2007 under a plea bargain, which he later rejected. He was charged with two counts of rape as well as indecent assault, sexual harassment and obstruction of justice. The charges relate to complaints from the late 1990s filed by at least three women.

Katsav has insisted he is innocent and has accused the press and prosecutors of conducting a political witch hunt against him.

He appeared on Israeli television two weeks ago and delivered an extraordinary two and a half hour speech protesting his innocence and criticizing journalists and his accusers. His press advisers resigned after the appearance.

According to the indictment, Katsav, while tourism minister, forced one of the women to his office floor, pulled off her clothes and raped her. A second time he summoned her to a hotel in Jerusalem for work and then raped her on the bed, it said. The maximum jail term for a rape conviction is 16 years.

In 2007 Katsav resigned as president just two weeks before his seven-year term expired. His departure was part of a plea bargain under which he would have admitted lesser charges of sexual harassment but would not have faced jail time.

However, in April last year, before he had admitted the charges, Katsav pulled out of the plea bargain, apparently confident that there was not enough evidence against him.

For months while he was still president, Katsav, who was born in Iran, accused the Israeli press of printing "poisonous, horrible lies". He implied the charges against him were motivated by racism against Israelis of Middle Eastern origin.

There was heavy criticism of Katsav's conduct from MPs and women's rights campaigners when the plea bargain was reached and he appeared ready to admit sexual harassment charges.

The case first emerged in July 2006 when Katsav complained to the attorney general that he was being blackmailed by the woman he was later suspected of raping.

But once the investigation began, the focus turned on the president himself and the Israeli press was filled with lurid accounts of the case. It is one of several fraud and sex scandals that have shaken the Israeli government in recent years.