against his rape conviction and his seven-year prison sentence.
Almost a year after he was convicted in the Tel Aviv District Court of two counts of rape, two counts of sexual harassment, an indecent act using force and obstruction of justice, Supreme Court Justices Edna Arbel, Salim Joubran (an Arab Christian) and Miriam Naor rejected all of Qatsav’s defense arguments and said the conviction and prison sentence imposed by the lower court would stand.
The justices ordered the Yazd-born Qatsav to present himself at the Tel Aviv District Court on December 7, where the Prisons Service will take him away to begin serving his sentence.
Qatsav, 65, was sentenced to a further two years on probation and will pay compensation totaling 100,000 shekels ($27,000) to his rape victim, known as “Alef from the Tourism Ministry.” The former president will also pay 25,000 shekels ($6,750) in compensation to another of the complainants, known as “Lamed,” whom he sexually abused and harassed.
In announcing their ruling, the justices had harsh words for Qatsav, whom they said had systematically abused his position as a senior government and public figure to satisfy his sexual desires.
“A great sadness falls on the State of Israel, when a former government minister, deputy prime minister and president is found to have committed such acts,” the ruling said. “The most difficult scene to witness is that of a national icon, someone who served the country, being sent to prison.”
Throughout the hearing, Qatsav sat in the second row of the public gallery, surrounded by a son and other family members. His wife, Gila, who had accompanied him to the last of his appeal hearings, chose not to be present for the verdict.
The former president looked tense, but managed to smile at the start of the hearing as he greeted his defense team.
As it very quickly became apparent that the court’s ruling was not in his favor, Qatsav’s demeanor changed. He appeared shocked, occasionally held his head in one hand and at one point appeared close to breaking down.
In a damning judgment that took almost an hour to read, the three justices said there was “no doubt” that the sexual relations between the former president and Alef, his employee when he was tourism minister, had been nonconsensual.
The court completely dismissed the line of defense presented by Qatsav’s lawyers, who hypothesized that he and Alef had a “romance” even though Qatsav had consistently denied that he ever had sexual relations with Alef.
One of the most difficult aspects of the case was that the rapes Alef complained about had no witnesses. The court had to weigh Alef’s testimony against that of Qatsav to determine whether the former Tourism Ministry employee was credible and whether she was telling the truth about the sex attacks, or whether there was reasonable doubt that they happened.
“The question is whether there is a ‘cloak’ around these events that creates reasonable doubt?” According to Alef, the 1998 Sheraton Hotel rape took place two months after Qatsav had raped her in his office. She testified to police that Qatsav asked her to come to the Sheraton to review documents in the lobby, but then invited her to a hotel room, where he raped her.
In an effort to establish reasonable doubt about both attacks, the defense had asked why Alef would go to a hotel room with Qatsav if he had already raped her in his office, and suggested instead that the two had engaged in an affair.
During the appeal hearings, Qatsav’s attorney, Avigdor Feldman, said Alef had put together pieces of a puzzle to create a picture of a rape, when in fact none had taken place.
According to Feldman’s hypothesis – which as the justices noted differed from both Qat-sav’s and Alef’s versions of events – Alef went to the hotel room voluntarily. There, Feld-man suggested the two had mutual consensual relations that almost resulted in full intercourse, but because Alef had not wished to fully consummate the act Qatsav had immediately stopped.
If what took place in the hotel had been a rape, Feldman argued, Qatsav would have continued at that point.
However, the justices dismissed this hypothesis completely.
“If there was a relationship between Alef and [Qatsav], why in the aftermath of the incident did his attitude toward her change?” they asked. “Why did he fire her from her job?” Qatsav also denied having sex with Alef, having a romance with her and even being with her in the hotel, the justices noted.
Also with regard to the defense’s arguments that there was reasonable doubt that the rapes happened, the justices pointed to cases of date rape, in which the fact that a man and a woman had been seen together as a couple in public did not mean that any sex that later occurred was consensual and so could not be used as an argument for reasonable doubt.
“Women have the right, at any time, to set their boundaries,” the justices said.
The defense’s argument that there had been no violence and so there could not have been any rape was also invalid, said the justices, because of the balance of power between Alef and Qatsav. The then-tourism minister was her boss, they noted.
Qatsav had taken advantage of his authority, first as tourism minister, then as deputy prime minister and finally as president to commit several sex crimes, “some of the most serious crimes on the law books,” the justices said.
Qatsav also expressed no remorse for his actions, the court said, and had never apologized for them. Instead, he claimed the rapes and sexual assaults never happened.
The former president had even tried to slander the complainants, the justices said.
A major factor in sentencing him to a lengthy prison term was to deter other potential sexual predators from carrying out similar acts, the court said.
After the verdict was read, Qatsav and his family left the courthouse without speaking to reporters.
Immediately after the verdict, Prosecutor Naomi Granot told journalists that the justices had sent an important message to all of the nation’s citizens.
“The Supreme Court showed today that all citizens are equal under the law – even the president,” said Granot. “The justices have demonstrated that complainants will be defended, and that anyone who violates the law will be punished.”
After returning home to Kiryat Malachi (where he was mayor from 1974 to 1981) after the verdict on Thursday, and with just a month to go before the start of his prison term, Qatsav expressed resentment at the Supreme Court’s decision.
According to one close friend, David Mot’ei, Qatsav told him that despite a seven-year prison sentence, “nothing could break him” and he “felt no guilt.” The former president said that the Supreme Court should have “heard his arguments, but the [judicial] system was not listening,” Mot’ei added.
Qatsav was born in Yazd and came to Israel when he was about six years old. He lived in a poverty-ridden refugee camp for years. His life story was a rags-to-riches tale of the struggle of Middle Eastern Jew to make his way in a society that was run by European Jews, who looked down upon the Middle Eastern Jews among.
