THE ISRAELI man on whose behalf Senator David Norris wrote letters seeking clemency following a statutory rape conviction in 1997, has said he regrets his involvement derailed the Independent candidate’s presidential bid.
Speaking in an interview in today’s Irish Times, Ezra Nawi – who was convicted in 1997 of the statutory rape of a Palestinian teenager, and who is a friend and former lover of Mr Norris – says it didn’t surprise him that the Senator wanted to run for president.
“I just feel sorry that my name caused him problems,” he says.
When asked about Mr Norris’s decision to seek clemency and a non-custodial sentence in a letter to the Jerusalem high court in 1997, Mr Nawi says: “David would help anybody, even without knowing them.”
“People that know me, they know what is good in my personality and what is bad in my personality. There is a friendship based on interest and there is a friendship where there are no conditions. David knows me, he knew the details [of the case] and he made his choice.”
Mr Nawi says Mr Norris’s decision to re-enter the race, having originally withdrawn from the campaign as a result of the revelations surrounding the clemency letters, is indicative of the Senator’s character.
“He’s a strong guy, he has a lot of qualities and it was important for him to use these qualities to be a good president, to represent Ireland well.”
In the interview, the 59-year-old openly gay Israeli plumber and peace activist, also discusses the relationship at the centre of the controversy.
He met the 15-year-old Palestinian boy when the youth asked Mr Nawi for a lift in Jerusalem. Mr Nawi admits that he knew the age of the boy when the relationship began in the early 1990s.
“I made a mistake, no doubt about it, and I wouldn’t do it again,” Mr Nawi says.
Mr Nawi says that he and the teenager met five or six times, claiming this was always at the boy’s instigation, after which point the Israeli authorities intervened.
He also claims the boy was the more eager party and ignored Mr Nawi’s pleas to “delay and think about it”.
“I wasn’t responsible enough to think that it could cause problems and danger for him . . . And it will escort me for the rest of my life.”