A special bench of High Court Justices will hear a week from Tuesday petitions calling for the canceling of a plea bargain made by former president Moshe Katzav over sexual abuse charges.

In the deal Katzav made with the state two weeks ago, he agreed to plead guilty to sexual harassment, forcible indecent assault and harassing a witness in return for rape charges being struck from the indictment and receiving a suspended prison sentence.

Supreme Court President Dorit Beinish will head the judicial panel, which will include Justices Eliezer Rivlin, Ayala Procaccia, Edmond Levy and Asher Grunis.

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The Movement for Quality Government in Israel, women's rights group Na'amat, feminist-religious organization Kolech, The Association of Rape Crisis Centers in Israel and the Women's International Zionist Organization (WIZO) all petitioned the High Court arguing the plea deal was "unreasonable in the extreme and damaging to the public interest."

Attorney Yoel Eden petitioned the court claiming charges left out of the indictment as too old to be admissible, were in fact still valid.

Eden argued that as the statute of limitations for sexual offenses was largely covered by Katzav's term in office, it should in fact be counted back in its full length starting from the time Katzav was elected president in 2000 - and not from his indictment this year. This would allow for the statute of limitations to include earlier complaints the state prosecution disqualified.

The State Prosecutor's Office submitted to the High Court Thursday its response to the petitions against the plea bargain. It made the deal with Katsav because the evidence had eroded so seriously that the chances of conviction had become borderline, sources within the office said.

The sources added that they realized that Katsav had had an intimate relationship with A., who worked for him in the President's Residence, but the evidence indicated that it was consensual.

In its official response to several petitions against the plea bargain, the prosecution told the High Court of Justice Thursday that difficulties in proving the allegations included in the draft indictment were the reason for the deal. It also said that at the hearing conducted by Attorney General Menachem Mazuz, Katsav's attorneys presented new information that weakened the evidence.

"This was not an acrobatic turnabout or a wild and baseless U-turn, but rather an evolutionary process of continual erosion during months of dealing with the case," said the response, which included 152 clauses.