President Moshe Katsav will see the draft indictment against him for the first time Tuesday. The Jerusalem district prosecutor's office made the document available to the president's attorney, Professor David Libai, on Monday.

Katsav, Libai and Katsav's other lawyer, Zion Amir, agreed not to release any of the document's details.

The low media profile, which is in contrast to the media accessibility afforded by Katsav and his associates over the past six months, is to enable the president's legal team to study the evidence carefully for contradictions that might persuade Attorney General Menachem Mazuz to be lenient in the hearing that he is to hold for Katsav before the indictment is finalized.

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Katsav's associates said Monday that his attorneys also made a commitment to the State Prosecutor's Office not to release details of the indictment until it is final.

Panel sets vote on how to impeach
The Knesset House Committee decided at the end of a stormy meeting on Monday that it would reach a final formulation Tuesday on impeachment proceedings against Katsav.

During the two-hour discussion, replete with shouting matches, MK Michael Eitan (Likud) told MK Zahava Gal-On (Meretz):

"I would suggest you go back to being Zahava of human rights and not Zahava Guillotine."

Eitan refused a demand by other members to take back his statement, calling it "a parliamentary expression."

Gal-On called Eitan's statement "shameful."

A number of committee members had harsh words for the Knesset legal adviser, attorney Nurit Elstein.

They said she had not drawn their attention to the clause in the law stating that the president can halt the process of temporary incapacity at any time and go back to carrying out his duties with full authority.

MK Zvi Hendel (National Union-National Religious Party) even demanded that Elstein be fired.

Elstein, who was not at the meeting due to illness, did not respond.

However, attorney Arbel Astrahan from the Knesset legal bureau said committee chair MK Ruhama Avraham (Kadima) had mentioned the matter in her statements at the meeting last week.

Eitan, who is spearheading opposition to Katsav's impeachment, said the procedure must be fair.

The MK said that as long as an indictment has not been issued, the president is presumed innocent.

He also demanded that those who want Katsav ousted should present detailed reasoning for their demand.

Eitan said even 120 MKs cannot impeach the president if they have not managed to prove that he behaved improperly.

"The committee has become a hostage of the president," Gal-On said. "What we need now is to be guided on how to remove the stain from the President's Residence, and therefore the process must be sped up as much as possible to end the president's term."

MK Dov Khenin (Hadash) proposed to the committee that the president's attorneys be informed they have a week to prepare for the impeachment discussion (instead of the committee's original two-week proposal), and that the Knesset debate on the matter also be moved up.

The decision on procedure, if approved by the committee, will then be brought before the plenum.

Practical deliberations will then begin on the demand by 30 MKs to impeach the president.