Last update - 00:00 25/09/2006
Attorney: Tape of alleged blackmail by Katsav accuser not complete
By Roni Singer-Heruti, Haaretz Correspondent
The attorney representing the former President's Residence employee who has accused President Moshe Katsav of raping her said Monday that the tape acquired by police in which her client is heard allegedly blackmailing the president was only a partial recording of the conversation.
As reported previously, the prosecution is currently examining evidence collected by police and pointing to an alleged attempt by the woman, A., to extort Katsav, as well as the interest to the public of pursuing this issue.
A. had a preliminary meeting on Monday for four hours with Jerusalem District Criminal Prosecutor Eli Abarbanel and his staff.
The state's attorneys scheduled the meeting in order to become better acquainted with A., to hear her version of events, and to clarify points in her statement.
Katsav's claim that A. attempted to extort money from him is based on an audio recording he made clandestinely during a meeting with her in which, according to his attorneys, A. is clearly heard to be demanding payment from the president.
Police sources confirmed on Monday that the tape contains only a few minutes of dialogue. During her interrogation, A. claimed that the meeting went on for some 45 minutes and that much of what she said was not on the tape given by Katsav to the police. A. claimed she went to the president to ask him to stop calling her. She said she told Katsav that his inappropriate behavior made him unfit to be president. A. also claims the president asked her if she wanted money from him, as the tape indicated, to which she answered, "Not even two million dollars would help me."
A.'s attorney, Kinneret Barashi, is claiming that the tape given to the police is incomplete and "does not reflect reality." "The president has been dragging his feet about handing over the tape for two weeks, after being asked to do so by the attorney general," said Barashi, who also drew attention to Katsav's second letter to Menachem Mazuz, "in which he claimed he didn't feel blackmailed and doesn't feel that a crime was done to him and therefore is not considering pressing criminal charges."
Katsav's attorney, Zion Amir, issued the following response on Monday. "The claim that the tape was not submitted in its entirety is the infuriating claim of an accuser who is drowning and grasping at straws. It's an absurd claim, and the person making it knows nothing about police work; the top criminal laboratory detectives can easily detect any change or alteration to [the tape]. Even the accuser realizes that the statements on the tape prove her serious crime of extorting the president of the state."