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A Tel Aviv Court has convicted former Israeli President Moshe Katsav of rape and sexual abuses. The indictments covered the time he served as tourism minister and later as president. They are the most serious criminal charges ever brought against a high-ranking Israeli official, stunning the whole nation.
The 65-years-old Katsav faces a minimum of four years in prison on two counts of raping one of his employees in 1998 when he was Israel's tourism minister.
The Tel Aviv District Court also convicted him on lesser counts of indecent acts and sexual harassment involving two other women who worked for him after he became president in 2000.
Ronit Amiel, Prosecutor in Katsav’s case, said, "The court indicted today a person who was the President of the State of Israel and a minister in its government in crimes that are among the most serious and despised in the book of laws."
He will be sentenced at a future date and remains free until then.
Katsav has denied the charges, claiming he's a victim of a political witch hunt and suggesting he was targeted because he comes from Israel's Sephardic community.
Sephardic Jews are of Middle Eastern origin. For decades they were an underclass in Israeli society.
Boaz Katsav, Moshe Katsav’s Son, said, "All the nation throughout its generations, with God's help, will know that my father, the eighth President of the State of Israel, is innocent,"
Thursday's verdict caps a four-and-a-half year saga that shocked Israelis, both with its lurid details and bizarre twists and turns.
Katsav resigned in 2007, two weeks before his seven-year term expired, under a plea bargain that would have required him to admit to lesser charges of sexual misconduct.
In a dramatic reversal in April 2009, Katsav rejected the deal and said he wanted to clear his name in court.
XINHUA
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