Israel ex-president Katsav paroled from prison rape term

An Israeli parole board on Sunday ordered the release of former president Moshe Katsav after serving five years of a seven-year term for rape and other sexual offences, his lawyer said.

"It was a very long journey," Tzion Amir said in remarks broadcast on Israeli army radio. "Today that journey reached its end with a reasoned decision by the parole committee."

Justice officials could not be reached by AFP for further details, but media said Katsav's release would be frozen for seven days for prosecutors to decide whether to appeal the decision.

Commentators said the chances of an appeal against the decision were minimal, however.

Amir said the 70-year-old Katsav burst into tears on hearing the ruling.

Katsav began his sentence in December 2011 and had already been rejected twice by the parole board since he became eligible for the customary one-third reduction for good behaviour behind bars.

His previous applications were turned down in part because he had expressed no remorse over his crimes and undergone no rehabilitative process.

Women's rights groups had especially criticised his refusal to acknowledge the facts that led to his conviction and to express regrets.

Israeli media reported, however, that the parole board found Katsav had more recently "undergone a change".

"The prisoner was asked many questions by the committee members regarding the circumstances of the offence, the victims' positions, his attitude to the victims and his understanding of his acts and their consequences, and the committee members were impressed by the honesty of his intentions," Haaretz newspaper reported the parole board as saying.

- 'Dangerous message' -

Once released, Katsav will face restrictions on his movements including a ban on overseas travel and a requirement to be at home between 10 pm and 6 am.

Judiciary sources said he would also not be allowed to grant an interview for two years, the time he would have had to serve as the remainder of his sentence.

The decision to free him was criticised by a group of opposition lawmakers including the leader of the Meretz party, Zehava Galon.

"This is a dangerous message that you can attack women and get away with it with the least punishment provided you are well-connected," they said in a statement.

Katsav had maintained his innocence despite being convicted in December 2010 on two counts of rape, sexual harassment, indecent acts and obstruction of justice.

The Iran-born bureaucrat, who rose from impoverished origins as a child immigrant to the nation's top ceremonial job, resigned in June 2007 and became an outcast of the political establishment.

A member of the right-wing Likud party, in 2000 he became Israel's first conservative president and the first born in an Islamic country.

For months he defied enormous public pressure to quit over the allegations before ultimately resigning as part of a plea bargain in 2007.

Katsav entered Ma'asiyahu prison near Tel Aviv on December 7, 2011, Israel's first president to be jailed since the state was created in 1948.

He was replaced as head of state by Nobel peace laureate and elder statesman Shimon Peres, his rival for the post in a 2000 vote, who died on September 28 this year.

One of eight children, Katsav was born in December 1945 and arrived in Israel three years after the 1948 war of independence.

He was the first Israeli head of state to visit Austria, once annexed by Adolf Hitler as part of Nazi Germany, and Croatia, where an estimated 75 percent of its 40,000 Jews were killed during the World War II Holocaust.

Source: AFP