Sex claims dog Israeli president

2006-07-11 17:46

Jerusalem - Israel's president is being dogged by allegations of sexual harassment, and the spiralling scandal has pushed the country's violent standoff with Hamas over a kidnapped soldier off the front pages.

The swirl of accusations against President Moshe Katsav has not led to charges or even a police investigation, but is threatening to tarnish the image of a Mr Clean politician and has invited comparisons to that other presidential sex scandal. "Who does he think he is? Clinton?" a pair of comedians wrote in a newspaper column this week.

Katsav, who has held the largely ceremonial office since 2000, denies wrongdoing.

'Katsav sexually harassed me'

The first allegation surfaced late last week, when Israel's Channel 2 TV reported that a former senior employee in the president's office accused him of sexually harassing her.

The station reported that in a meeting with Katsav last week, she also threatened to disclose the number of an overseas bank account allegedly set up to collect money he received in exchange for presidential pardons. The employee demanded hush money, the report said.

The Maariv newspaper reported on Tuesday that a second woman has since come forward. "Katsav sexually harassed me," the headline blared, but the newspaper did not reveal her identity.

The president, whose decades-long political career had been unmarred by any whiff of scandal, insisted in a statement that all his dealings with female employees have been professional.

No charges

His office has said he has filed no blackmail complaint. But it rejected the graft accusation as absurd. "The president decides whether to grant clemency after a recommendation by the justice minister, whose signature is required on the writ of clemency," his office said.

No sexual harassment charges have been lodged against Katsav.

- AP