Israeli ex-president stands trial on sex charges

Israel's ex-president Moshe Katsav appeared before a Jerusalem court on sexual harassment charges on Tuesday, becoming the country's highest-ranking former official to go on trial.

Flanked by his wife and escorted by dozens of police officers, Katsav made his way into the courtroom to shouts of "rapist, rapist!"

As the trial got under way, Katsav's lawyers announced that he wanted to annul a plea deal with the prosecution under which he would be tried only for sexual harassment, indecent acts and suborning a witness, but not for rape.

"My client wants to annul the compromise agreement and fight to demonstrate his innocence," attorney Avigdor Feldman told journalists after the hearing, which lasted less than half an hour.

In seeking to reverse the deal, the 62-year-old married father of five faces the risk of tougher charges that could include rape.

The compromise deal reached last June angered women's rights groups in Israel, which claimed in a statement that it amounted to "abandoning all victims of sexual aggression to their fate."

Several individuals and organizations had petitioned the court to reject the plea bargain and order Attorney General Menachem Mazuz to adopt an original draft indictment.

Among them was one of the alleged rape victims, Plaintiff A, who had slammed what she called an amoral deal contrary to public interest. The woman has accused Katsav of raping her while she was his secretary in the late 1990s.

Columnists, legal and political analysts as well as politicians also blasted Mazuz for dropping the multiple rape charges.

A crowd of women on Tuesday gathered outside the court in a display of solidarity with the alleged victims, brandishing banners reading, "You are no longer alone."

"It is a historic moment ... a little embarrassing," a legal analyst told Israel's armed forces radio.

Katsav was forced to resign after the allegations became public.

He was the second Israeli head of state to be forced out of the largely ceremonial office due to scandal.

His predecessor, the late Ezer Weizman, had to resign in 2000 after revelations that he received around 450,000 dollars from a French millionaire while a minister and a member of parliament.

Israeli politics has been rocked by scandal in recent years.

In November, police decided that there was insufficient evidence to indict Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in a graft case involving privatization of a major bank while Olmert was acting finance minister in 2005.

And in February, a son of former premier Ariel Sharon -- who is now in a coma -- began a seven-month jail term for campaign financing irregularities in connection with his father's bid for the Likud party leadership.