ISRAEL:The Israeli president Moshe Katsav struck a surprise plea bargain with prosecutors yesterday under which he will resign and admit charges of sexual harassment in return for avoiding a prison term and much tougher rape charges.
The deal, which was announced by the attorney general Menachem Mazuz in Jerusalem, brought swift condemnation from MPs and women's rights campaigners.
It marked an extraordinary reversal for Mr Mazuz, who earlier this year had announced that he had sufficient evidence to charge the president with rape, abuse of power and several other sexual offences.
At least four female employees had given evidence against Mr Katsav during a seven-month investigation.
Mr Katsav (61) will be formally charged at a Jerusalem magistrates' court next week and will admit to a series of indecent assaults against a woman who worked in the tourism ministry when he was minister in the late 1990s.
Mr Katsav will also admit to sexual harassment of a woman who worked in the president's official residence, and to harassing a witness.
The charges would have brought up to seven years in jail, but under the deal he will be given a suspended sentence and will have to pay an unspecified amount of compensation to his victims, as well as submitting his resignation.
Yesterday, Mr Mazuz sought to defend his decision. "When the president admits, it is not trivial," he said.
"From the status of the state of Israel's number one citizen, the president has descended to a person guilty of a sex offence, with all the personal and public disgrace which will accompany him."
He said it was Mr Katsav who had proposed the deal, which was finalised yesterday morning.
The attorney general also said some of the allegations would have been difficult to prove in court and might have damaged the "image of the state of Israel".
The case first emerged in July last year when the president complained to the attorney general that he was being blackmailed by the woman he was later suspected of raping.
But once the investigation began, the focus turned on the president himself and the Israeli press was filled with lurid accounts of the case.
It was only one of several fraud and sex scandals that have shaken the Israeli government in the last year.
Mr Katsav will submit his resignation today and it will take effect 48 hours later, just before he formally admits the charges.