Attorneys for former president, in prison for rape, said set to appeal to Rivlin, claiming that his condition now borders on insanity
The attorneys for former president Moshe Katsav, who is in prison for rape, reportedly intend to seek a presidential pardon for their client three weeks after a parole board rejected his bid for early release.
Katsav, they intend to argue, fell into a deep depression, bordering on insanity, after the board rejected his request to have a third of his seven-year sentence knocked off for good behavoir, the daily Yedioth Ahronoth reported Sunday.
The pardon request will be submitted to Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked in the coming days before it lands on President Reuven Rivlin’s desk. According to unnamed legal sources cited in the report, Rivlin is likely to approve the request if a psychiatric evaluation is produced corroborating that Katsav’s mental health has greatly deteriorated.
Associates of Katsav say that when his bid for early release after four years behind bars was turned down, he became despondent, choosing to not appeal the decision because he had lost faith in the parole process. Channel 10 reported the day after the board’s decision that prison authorities had placed the former president on suicide watch and that he was to been given counseling.
Katsav, 70, was convicted on December 30, 2010, of two counts of rape, among other charges. He began serving his sentence in December 2011, and is slated for release in December 2018.
Rivlin and Katsav are former Likud party colleagues who served in the Knesset together for years before Katsav won the presidency.
In March, the parole board spent 11 hours reviewing Katsav’s case at a hearing during which the ex-president, at times in tears, made an effort to persuade its members to shave off one-third of his seven-year sentence while continuing to maintain his innocence.
On April 6, after twice delaying the decision, prison authorities rejected his plea. In citing the reasons for its decision, the board noted that Katsav continues to deny that he is guilty of the crimes for which he was convicted and shows no concern for the condition of his victims.
Before the parole board hearing media reports said that both Rivlin and Shaked supported an early release for Katsav, although Rivlin’s office vehemently denied the reports.
According to Channel 10 at the time, Shaked asserted that there was no reason for the parole board to not order the release of Katsav.
“He meets the criteria [for early release],” Shaked reportedly said of the ex-president. The justice minister then added that both she and Rivlin would support pardoning Katsav if he were denied parole.
At the end of last month Katsav was released for a three-day furlough from Ma’asiyahu Prison in Ramle for the Passover festival.
As reported by The Times of Israel