Katsav prison sentence delayed until ruling on his appeal

President Moshe Katsav












Katsav was sentenced last month to seven years in jail after being found guilty of rape and other sexual offenses; appeal hearing to take place within days.

The Supreme Court delayed on Tuesday the start of former President Moshe Katsav's jail sentence until a ruling is reached on an appeal filed by his lawyers.

Katsav, who was convicted on two counts of rape for indecent assault and sexual harassment of female employees, appealed the ruling against him this week.

The former president was sentenced last month to seven years in jail after being found guilty of rape and other sexual offenses.

He was supposed to start serving his sentence on May 8, 2011.

The court also ruled that Katsav must in addition to his jail sentence, serve two years of probation and pay NIS 100,000 to his rape victim, a former employee of the Tourism Ministry known as A., and pay NIS 25,000 to L., a former employee of the President's Residence, whom he sexually harassed and abused.

Katsav is challenging the ruling of the Tel Aviv District Court, which found him guilty. He is expected to argue that in its unequivocal ruling, the court ignored entirely any doubts, mostly about the claims of the main plaintiff, A., and also the difficulties in evidence, which led to serious disagreements among senior figures in the State Prosecution Office.

In the appeal, the defense team for Katsav is expected to the argument that their client was convicted in the media before his trial began. This will probably be based on the minority view of Judge Yehudit Shevach, who wrote that Katsav should have been sentenced to only four years' imprisonment in view of the damage he sustained as a result of the media coverage and the conduct of the State Prosecutor's Office.

Experts assessing the chances facing Katsav's appeal say they are slim seeing that the Supreme Court does not normally interfere in the factual conclusions of the District Court or concerning the credibility of witnesses.

The fact that the conviction was decided unanimously by a panel of three judges will make it difficult for Katsav to forward his argument.