During a second hearing into his appeal before the Supreme Court Wednesday, former President Moshe Katsav burst out and told the judges: "The prosecution has said that if this were about a regular citizen then no indictment would have been submitted before the court."
Katsav's attorney Zion Amir argued that: "Till his head is in the hangman's noose with his neck broken he will not be left alone." Amir also claimed that: "The things he has been enduring are a punishment yet to be imagined."
Katsav was in court to argue his appeal against convictions of rape, indecent acts, and sexual harassment, as well as the 7-year sentence he received for them.
- The hearing focused on Katsav's sexual harassment of H. and L., who worked for him at the President's Residence.
"We live in an age of huggers and hugging," said his attorney, Zion Amir. "Katsav's image has been blackened and mauled. Every innocent hug has become a violation – the court has erred."
Amir claimed it was unfair to place the president on trial for sexual harassment because he hugged his employees, and said there had never been a trial based on accusations of hugging.
"If I leave the courtroom and Justice Joubran hugs me, I will be excited and tell everyone. This is the whole story," he argued. "How was such an indictment born? How was such a complainant born? This is very unsettling."
Blessings bestowed on Katsav at court on Wednesday (Photo: Noam Moscowitz)
Justices Miriam Naor, Edna Arbel, and Salim Joubran remained unimpressed, however, telling Amir to focus on the fact that L. and H. had responded to the harassment at the time and that the case for their complaints had already been made during the trial.
An argument eventually broke out between the attorney and Justice Naor, who told him to remember the difference between a hearing on first instance and appeal hearings.
The previous appeal hearing took place on Sunday during which defense attorney Avigdor Feldman clarified that he did not intend on presenting an alternative defense, but hinted that Katsav and complainant A. may have had an affair, a claim the former president has himself rejected.
"In order for the court to discuss this possibility, shouldn't the appellant himself claim this?" Justice Salim Joubran retorted.
He went on to insist that Katsav was lying about his relationship with A. "There is another version of the relationship, and he is not telling the truth," Feldman said of his client.