President Moshe Katsav lashed out at the police, attorney general and mainly the media in his Wednesday night harangue, accusing them of banding against him in the affair of his alleged sexual offenses.

However, Katsav's statements were not entirely accurate or true. Katsav said that no one in the media had "looked at the facts. None of you investigated if these facts were true ... you violated all the rules of journalistic ethics."

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However, the media did investigate not only the complainants' accusations but also the reports issued by sources close to the president. Haaretz's probe, for example, led to women who testified directly and indirectly that they had been assaulted by Katsav. Their statements were checked and cross-checked with other people who had once worked with them or had heard their stories. Several testimonies that had not been cross-checked were not released.

Maariv reported one woman's story only after she passed a lie detector test.

The police made every inquiry to verify that the first complainant's charges against Katsav were not false. She permitted the detectives to examine her bank accounts, to prove she did not receive money for sexual services and allowed them to interview all the men whom she had dated. She gave the names of all her employers and her previous addresses. The detectives checked all of this, but could find nothing to undermine her credibility. A police lie detector test indicated that she had spoken the truth.

In contrast, statements made by sources close to Katsav were frequently found to be inaccurate or false.

For example, Yedioth Ahronoth reported that five of the first complainant's previous employers said she had tried to blackmail them as well. Haaretz and Channel 2 news contacted the complainant's former employers in Israel and the United States to verify this. Incidentally, fewer than five employers existed and they had nothing to offer but praise for her. The employers' names were given to the police.

Katsav accused the women who complained of his conduct of lying. He said they had begged to work in the President's Residence after the presumed "assaults," had maintained contact with him and even sent him letters of tribute. However, the police found that, at least in some of the cases, the women had been forced to write Katsav letters thanking him and praising him in exchange for references for their next job.

Some of the women said that after they had left the President's Residence, Katsav sent messengers to try to appease them with tempting job offers - in exchange for their silence.

Channel 10 reported that a felon named Ami Barda had approached the station (with the help of a confidant of Katsav's), claiming he had a compromising video cassette of the first complainant. However, Barda did not pass the lie detector test.

In his harangue against Attorney General Menachem Mazuz Katsav said he had invited Menachem Mazuz to a meeting after the first complainant had been to see him. He said he had told him: "You decide if this is blackmail [or] a criminal offense. After the meeting, I was asked by the media to comment. Only Gila and I knew of the meeting, yet it leaked to the media. I called the attorney general two days later and said the media got a leak, not only about the meeting but about its content. He said to me I will not confirm nor deny it ... so when the media approached me I did not deny or confirm it, but then Mazuz showed up a day later in the Knesset and issued an official announcement confirming the meeting and what was said in it, contrary to what he told me a day earlier on the phone."

Mazuz had indeed been invited to a meeting with Katsav on Wednesday, July 5 2006, three days before the affair was exposed on Channel 2. The two agreed to keep the meeting and what was said in it quiet, and that they would neither confirm nor deny it if asked by the media.

However, the attorney general's office was shocked to discover that on Saturday evening, after the Channel 2 report, the president's office had stated that the meeting was "a routine periodic meeting," contrary to their agreement. Therefore, when Mazuz was asked about it in the Knesset the next day he felt he had to tell the reporters what the meeting had really been about.