JERUSALEM – THE FORMER president of Israel, Moshe Katsav, will begin a seven-year jail sentence next month after the country’s supreme court upheld his conviction for raping a former aide and molesting two other women who worked for him.
“He misused his high position and defiled the bodies and dignity of [his accusers],” the three-judge panel said in a unanimous ruling against Katsav’s appeal and ordered him to report to jail to begin serving his sentence on December 7th.
Katsav (65) was president from 2000 to 2007. He was convicted in December of twice raping an aide when he was a cabinet minister in the late 1990s and sexually assaulting two other women who worked for him while he was president.
“The ruling of the supreme court reaffirms that everybody in Israel is equal before the law. Presidents and dignitaries must [also] be held to account for their actions,” prosecution attorney Naomi Granot said.
Katsav had consistently denied the charges. The court said his version of events had been “fundamentally unreliable”.
“He fell from dizzying heights to a deep abyss,” it said in its ruling. “It is hard to see someone who served as an official symbol of the state going to jail.” – (Reuters)