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suspended President Moshe Katsav
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| By israelinsider staff May 2, 2007 |
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The hearing to determine whether or not President Moshe Katsav should be indicted for sexual crimes began Wednesday morning in Jerusalem and lasted four hours. Attorney-General Menahem Mazuz and the lawyers agreed to meet again in about two weeks, to complete their arguments against indicting the President on rape charges.
Katsav's lawyers were optimistic about Mazuz's agreement to prolong the hearing and attorney Zion Amir told The Jerusalem Post that it proved Mazuz "is giving great weight to our arguments and that he is taking this matter very seriously by deviating from his usual practice of granting only one meeting."
Mazuz may have made the decision in an effort to show Katsav's lawyers that he takes them seriously or because the alleged new evidence they provided at Wednesday's meeting requires more deliberation.
Channel 2 TV reported on later Wednesday that two friends of one of the prime complainants in the Katsav case, "Aleph," had contradicted her claims of rape. Katsav's lawyers apparently stressed this new information during yesterday's hearing.
According to Channel 2, during the initial investigation into the allegations of rape against Katsav, police asked Aleph why her account of the crime should be believed. She told police that they could validate her claims by speaking to her friends in New York, whom she claimed knew the truth about her rape.
However, when the police questioned her friends they said, "If she had been raped by Katsav she definitely would have told us," Channel 2 reported. According to Aleph's friends, Aleph had a "romantic affair" with Katsav and was "obsessed" with him.
Katsav was suspended in January following the allegations.
Attorneys Zion Amir, Avigdor Feldman, and Avraham Lavi said, before the hearing, that they would try to convince the Attorney-General not to file an indictment against the president for rape charges.
Lavi said before the start of the hearing that it would be "dramatic" and said they would present Mazuz with new evidence.
Zion Amir, another one of Katsav's lawyers, said "We will be coming to Mazuz with optimism," the The Jerusalem Post reported Tuesday. He continued, "It will not be difficult for the attorney-general to close the file, because the evidence gathered by the police does not offer a reasonable chance for a conviction."
Lior Katsav, Moshe's brother, told Ynetnews that a meeting Tuesday night with the president and his aides ended positively. "The lawyers are motivated and very optimistic that they will be able to convince the team tomorrow that there is no basis for an indictment," Lior Katsav said.
Katsav's attorney Zion Amir said, "We are now convinced more than ever, after having the evidence exposed to us and after analyzing it, that the attorney general's willingness to hear us out is serious ... We also have faith that the arguments will fall on attentive ears.
"The attorney general is coming from a clean slate and we believe he will be convinced ... according to the test set by attorney general Mazuz, an indictment is only filed when there is a viable chance for conviction. In this case, the chance for conviction does not exist."
Katsav has said that he will resign if Mazuz decides to file an indictment.
Mazuz will reportedly announce his decision about two weeks after the end of the hearing. |
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