16 îêòÿáðÿ ïðåçèäåíò äîëæåí ïðèñóòñòâîâàòü íà îòêðûòèè çèìíåé ñåññèè Êíåññåòà. Îí íå áóäåò ïðîèçíîñèòü ðå÷ü. _________________ A la guerre comme a la guerre èëè âòîðàÿ ðåäàêöèÿ Çàáóãîðíîâà
Moshe Katsav lashed out at the law enforcement agencies Thursday, in his first response to Attorney General Menachem Mazuz's announcement on Sunday that he plans to charge the former president with serious sexual offenses, including rape.
The speech covered numerous targets: the attorney general, the State Prosecutor's Office, the police, the women who filed the complaints against him, and the media. In particular, however, he assailed Mazuz's integrity and presented himself as a victim of the law enforcement agencies.
"I and my family are bleeding and crushed from those same intrigues that brought about my conviction in the eyes of public," he said. "I haven't committed suicide and I haven't broken, but my noose is Mazuz's lifeline."
Katsav spoke for more than two and a half hours to an almost empty hall in his hometown of Kiryat Malakhi, then infuriated the exhausted journalists by refusing to take questions. He said his legal advisors had forbidden him to do so, "so as not to become embroiled in the offense of obstructing justice." Under cover of the ensuing uproar, he and his wife, Gila, then slipped out of the hall.
The Katsav family was there in full force, occupying the front row of seats. But even they seemed to be tuning out as the speech went on and on.
"I'm proud but humiliated, worn out and hurting but determined not to give in," Katsav said. "I will not give up. I was a good president and won praise from all sides; I believe history will judge me kindly."
"For three years they've conducted a witch hunt against me," he continued. "The police, the attorney general, the prosecution and the media have trampled my honor as a man and trampled my family. I have become fair game ... but the day will come when my innocence will cry out. They've lynched me, they've almost broken me. It is impossible to stand up against a system that is so destructive and lacking all restraint. I've kept silent for two years, but no more."
Katsav accused the prosecution of systematically leaking evidence collected in his case to the media, and even showed the assembled journalists a disk that, he claimed, contained 1,500 documents related to his case and had been leaked to the media by the prosecution.
"These are documents that I asked the court to give us as part of my defense, but they were not handed over," he said. "However, they did go to the media."
Throughout his 40 years of public service, he continued, he was always careful not to "rub elbows with" what he termed "the elites and the media clique." And that, he charged, is why he is being victimized today.
Katsav also accused the prosecution of concealing material from the public that, he claimed, proves his innocence. "But the valorous press, which runs to court to get gag orders overturned over every bit of nonsense and every hiccup, was silent," he charged. "The media feared that the wild incitement and persecution against me would be proven baseless."
He lambasted numerous specific newspaper articles, quoting their contents and headlines, and also certain specific journalists. One, Shalom Yerushalmi of Maariv, stormed out of the hall after Katsav accused him of hostile reporting from the podium.
Moving on to the police, Katsav charged: "The police investigation against me was superficial, not thorough and tendentious. Twice I went over the evidence with my lawyers and I didn't find so much as a piece of evidence that could be used against me. Mazuz and [former] state prosecutor Eran Shendar evidently never bothered to read this material."
Finally, he lashed out at A., the woman he will be charged with raping, who worked under him when he was tourism minister. Katsav said he fired A. because she was untrustworthy and behaved improperly. He also said there are witnesses who reported that immediately after she received the dismissal notice, "she said, 'I'll say he sexually harassed me.' And I have dozens of other examples of how Meni Mazuz has spilled my blood in the media, with the media's assistance."
In another attempt to smear A., Katsav claimed that on the night she moved out of a rented apartment on a moshav due to a dispute with the owner, the apartment was torched. "Why don't the police investigate that?" he demanded.
"This entire affair is causing huge damage to the battle against sexual harassment," he added. "After I am acquitted - and I will be acquitted - what will people think about those who really were sexually harassed?" _________________ A la guerre comme a la guerre èëè âòîðàÿ ðåäàêöèÿ Çàáóãîðíîâà
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1070712.html
Last update - 12:10 13/03/2009
Katsav's lawyer: Press conference won't affect trial
By Ofra Edelman, Dana Weiler-Polak and Tomer Zarchin, Haaretz Correspondents and Haaretz Service
Moshe Katsav's attorney Avigdor Feldman said on Friday that the press conference given by the former president, in which he launched a diatribe against Israel's law enforcement authorities, would not affect the impending trial against him.
"I see my client's public appearance as external to the legal proceeding," Feldman told Army Radio. "It is a personal measure the former president took to face the State Prosecution, the media and the public."
For nearly three hours on Thursday, the former president responded to allegations of serious sex offenses leveled against him, in the wake of Attorney General Menachem Mazuz's decision to indict him for rape, among other charges.
"Katsav chose a desperate path, that was quite obviously not going to be well accepted," Feldman continued.
Feldman insisted that the decision to sign a plea bargain, on which Katsav later backtracked, was "completely mutual," and had not been imposed on the former president like he argued in the press conference.
"It was a process that came into being during the hearing, when it became increasingly clear that this case will not result in the desired indictment," Feldman said.
Like his client, Feldman also criticized Mazuz, saying that the Attorney General was "too quick" to indict the former president.
"Katsav was subject to baseless gossip and rumors, which led Mazuz to believe that they must have a grain of truth," he said.
Katsav's media advisors resign
Following the press conference on Thursday, Katsav's media advisors resigned.
Ronen Tzur and Motti Morell had recommended that the conference only last for half an hour, while it actually went on for almost three hours.
"Following essential differences of approach toward the running of the press conference, we announced tonight to Mr Katsav that we cannot continue to contribute on a professional level. We believe in his complete innocence and wish him a full acquittal, which is what we believe he deserves," the pair said in a statement.
Meanwhile, the press conference evoked harsh responses from the Justice Ministry and women's groups.
The Justice Ministry accused Katsav of trying to turn his upcoming indictment for sex crimes into a "media circus" at a press conference Thursday.
"Katsav's attempt to turn his trial into a media circus shows he has lost control and violates the basic norms of behavior," a ministry spokesman said.
Katsav, who faces rape charges, accused the legal establishment of using the media to determine his case and said that Attorney General Menachem Mazuz had leaked information to journalists.
The Justice Ministry said, "Katsav's speech was riddled with false accusations and distorted facts as part of an uncontrolled personal slander campaign against the attorney general and law enforcement heads."
Mazuz said earlier that Katsav's campaign was also intended to thwart the proper conduct of the legal processes.
Women's organizations Thursday reacted with disgust to Katsav's attack.
"Katsav's statement, backed by a battery of lawyers and public relations people, is pathetic and repulsive," said Nira Bartal, chair of the Israel Women's Network.
"A man charged with rape and severe sexual offenses should make his statements in the Supreme Court, not in Kiryat Malachi," she said. "The cynical, contemptible speech we heard tonight proves that Katsav is continuing the modus operandi he had as minister and president - exploiting power and authority to intimidate the justice system and the complainants."
She urged everyone to support the women, who filed complaints against Katsav, for their courage and resolve, despite the attempts to slander them and undermine their credibility.
"We're tired of hearing of Katsav's tirade against the police, the prosecution and the victims," said Michal Rozin, director of the Association of Rape Crisis Centers in Israel. "We demand to put an end to the miscarriage of justice done to the victims and the whole public, which is forced to hear this contemptible slander and claims of conspiracy and discrimination. The public isn't stupid, it wants the court to decide what the truth is. We're confident the court will identify the conduct of a cowardly serial sex offender."
Naamat chair Talia Livni said it was a pity Katsav took the bad advice his counselors gave him to "lash out at the justice system of the state he once headed. Having chosen to hold his trial in the street, Katsav should not be surprised if the public hangs him in the city square."
"Even 100 public relations experts won't save him now. It's time this defendant had his day in court," she said.
Earlier Thursday, Mazuz accused Katsav's attorneys of running a wild public relations campaign in a bid to delegitimize the legal system.
Mazuz said the campaign was also intended to thwart the proper conduct of the legal processes.
In a letter relayed to the attorneys by a senior aide of Mazuz's, the attorney general said that he, the state prosecution and law enforcement officials "would not be deterred from doing their jobs and their duty professionally, loyally and fairly."
The letter was sent in response to a request earlier Thursday by Katsav's legal team for Mazuz to order an investigation into the release of material from the police probe of the former president.
Mazuz added that when the "slander festival" was over, it would be possible to hold a real investigation in court over the transfer of the material. _________________ A la guerre comme a la guerre èëè âòîðàÿ ðåäàêöèÿ Çàáóãîðíîâà
Until the very last moment it was unclear whether it was going to be a monologue or a stand-up performance involving audience participation. The performance was scheduled to take place far from the madding crowd, on the home ground of Kiryat Malakhi, but the news channels cameras were there to make it accessible to all.
The curtain was down, but not on the stage. From behind it, from the right side of the small auditorium, attended by press and the home crowd, emerged Moshe Katsav, led his wife to her place in the first row, kissed the usherette on her cheek, and took his place on the podium, center stage, behind a lectern flanked by two Israeli flags.
He opened in a somber tone, looking at the audience and the cameras in the eye: "Here I stand," he said, "a former President of Israel, proud but humbled, broken, in pain, vanquished."
Then, with his right hand he adorned his nose with reading glasses and went on, much quicker, reading from his notes. That was not the way he had wanted to end his term in office. He would have told us about all the things he had done to commemorate the Holocaust, to reinforce democracy, to visit bereaved families of soldiers killed in wars, but "I was not given the opportunity."
But he does not lose faith: "At the end of the day, history will deliver its verdict."
He used his right fist first to highlight his words by thumping on the lectern. Then it turned out that this hand will also perform the glasses maneuver: On the nose for reading a myriad of details, off the nose for an impassionate plea. When not holding or waving the glasses, the right fist went up and down, and gradually the grip loosened and the pointing finger started to wag, highlighting his words and threatening his many enemies, named and unnamed. As time went by he warmed up, waved his arms, moved right and left behind the lectern.
"Gila and I live in the same house for the last 40 years," his voice thickened and he took a sip of water. "Was I ever given preferential treatment by the press?" he asked accusingly. His monologue was composed of strategically-placed words, and expressed to give the audience an idea what he has been going through: A nuclear bomb, lynch, obsessive pursuit, Dreyfus, Rabin's murder, snowball, tsunami, SIT (the police's special investigative unit, which was investigating rumors about him, and not his complaint about extortion), SIT, SIT.
He agreed to the plea bargain because he wanted the Attorney General to have his "pound of flesh," and in the plea he admitted to nothing unsavory - possibly a peck on the cheek here, or touching a leg there. Nothing to write an indictment about. And the anonymous women - none of them ever complained, he repeated again and again - they hired PR people, and those were financed by Meretz and Hadash.
Katsav advised totalitarian states to take lessons from the seemingly democratic state of Israel, instead of staging bloody coups d'etat to haunt their hated leaders by accusing them of indecent acts. "The press petitions the High Court of Justice with every peep, squeak and yawn, but they did not ask for lifting the gag order the Attorney General asked for [and was granted] on his affidavit regarding the plea bargain which - claimed Katsav - admits that "A" from the Presidents' mansion's words are not to be trusted.
It would have gone on and on, but after about an hour Katsav started to point his finger in accusation at some of the journalists present. When they tried to answer - or ask - they were sent out from the field of play by the local authoritative ushers-cum-security team.
It looked like Katsav was over-identifying with the part he was playing. He harangued the audience with words, claims, accusations and rhetorical questions, and did not notice that he was loosing his audience. After the journalists were sent out, the news channels terminated their live broadcast. I believe the show went on, but I could not have witnessed it anymore, and therefore am not able to tell you how - and if - it ever ended. _________________ A la guerre comme a la guerre èëè âòîðàÿ ðåäàêöèÿ Çàáóãîðíîâà
Òàê ýòî îí îá îáùåñòåííîñòè äóìàë îêàçûâàåòñÿ! Íó òàê åñëè îí ñîçíàåòñÿ â áîëåå ìåëêèõ ïðåñòóïëåíèÿõ, ïðåäúÿâëåííûõ åìó ñëåäñòâèåì, îí òåì ñàìûì è äîêàæåò îáùåñòâåííîñòè ÷òî ó ñëåäñòâèÿ åñòü ìàòåðèàëû ïðîòèâ íåãî.... _________________ A la guerre comme a la guerre èëè âòîðàÿ ðåäàêöèÿ Çàáóãîðíîâà