Last update - 00:00 28/09/2006
MKs threaten walkout if Pres. Katsav addresses Knesset
By Roni Singer-Heruti and Amiram Barkat, Haaretz Correspondent
MKs Ruhama Avraham (Kadima) and Yoram Marciano (Labor) said Friday that they would walk out of the Knesset plenum if President Moshe Katsav - who is being investigated for rape and other suspected offenses - addresses the opening session of the Winter Assembly on October 16, adding that many other MKs would do the same.
The President's Residence announced Friday that Katsav would be attending the session, Israel Radio reported.
"I simply get up and leave the hall," Marciano told Israel Radio on Friday, describing his protest plans. "I'm not the only one and I know there are many of my colleagues who will do so."
"I say to the president what I told him at the beginning: This is not how a president behaves," he said.
Avraham, who heads the Knesset House Committee, said Friday she was proposing a legal amendment that would allow the committee to determine when the president is unable to fulfill his duties rather than giving the president the prerogative to decide.
David Mena, an attorney and a friend of Katsav's, objected to the planned walkout, saying he expects MKs to respect the president as the symbol of the institution of the presidency.
The remarks came a day after Katsav swore in Justice Eliezer Rivlin as deputy president of the Supreme Court, having rejected demands that he recuse himself due to accusations that he raped a former employee and sexually harassed other employees.
Katsav is also suspected of engaging in irregularities in the way he granted presidential pardons and illegally wiretapping President's Residence employees.
Katsav did recuse himself from swearing in the new court president, Dorit Beinisch.
Sources: Katsav had affair with woman accusing him of rape
Senior sources in the President's Residence on Thursday told Haaretz that Katsav had a consensual affair with the former employee accusing him of rape, contradicting Katsav's express statement that he had no contact with female employees beyond routine work contacts.
Associates of the president have advised him to confess to having had consensual sexual relations with the employee in case of indictment, Channel 10 reported Thursday.
In a conversation recorded by the former employee, Katsav can be heard complaining that she was seeing other men; she then tells him to "cool it," since he is a married man.
The woman has given the police a number of recordings of her conversations with Katsav.
These recordings allegedly corroborate her claim that he harassed her after she stopped working for him. The complainant told the police she left the President's Residence after Katsav forced her to have sexual intercourse with him.
In one of the recordings of their conversations, made on her mobile phone, Katsav angrily called her a 'slut' and accused her of sleeping with other men. Police also have a letter that the complainant sent Katsav, in which she asked him to stop harassing her on the telephone.
A friend of the complainant's testified that she witnessed a phone conversation from Katsav to the complainant, in which he appeared to be threatening her.
These recordings were mentioned in the conversation between Katsav and the complainant whose transcript was published in Yedioth Ahronoth this week. Katsav said the conversation shows that the woman was blackmailing him, and that this is why he approached the attorney general, triggering a police investigation.
The newspaper released two different transcripts on Wednesday and Thursday, both indicating that the complainant asked Katsav for $200,000.
According to Thursday's transcript, she said: "I promise you that I will destroy all my recordings that very moment."
The complainant said that the published transcript was incorrect, incomplete and omitted several statements.
"It included statements that were uttered in the room where they spoke at the beginning of their meeting, while the president's lawyer said that the tape recorder was only working in another room," said the complainant's lawyer, Kinneret Barashi.
Moreover, Barashi said, the transcript omitted the last sentence in the recording, in which the complainant told the president that "even $2 million wouldn't do me any good after what you did."
"The released transcript was deliberately incomplete, in order to conceal Katsav's proposals," Barashi charged. "No wonder the newspaper published a second, different transcript of the same conversation a day later. This is deception amounting to libel."
Attorney Sassi Gez, a criminal law expert, told Haaretz that if the published transcript is complete, there are apparently grounds for charging the complainant with blackmail.
"The complainant could be negotiating with Katsav for compensation for something he did to her," Gez said. "Just as one negotiates for compensation in civil suits, she is asking for what she deserves. On the other hand, the president's claim that she tried to blackmail him is based on her saying she would destroy all her recordings that very moment."
"However, if there were a previous conversation in which the president mentioned the recordings in her possession, and she is answering him in this one, it changes everything," he added.
The complainant intends to file a complaint against Katsav's attorney, Zion Amir for mentioning her name on Channel 10 on Thursday.
Amir apologized, saying that he spoke the name "in the heat of the moment."
Amir charged that the report of Katsav's alleged affair with the complainant was "a malicious lie and an ugly media spin. The president totally denied this and the media is taking sides in the affair in order to sway public opinion."