A former Israeli President was found guilty of rape and sexual harassment by a Tel Aviv district court on Thursday.
Moshe Katsav, 65, was found guilty of two accounts of rape of an employee in 1998 when he was tourism minister, according to AP. He was also convicted of the sexual harassment of two other women while he was president from 2000 to 2007.
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described the conviction as a “sad day for the State of Israel,” according to the Jerusalem Post.
But according to Netanyahu the court ruling also sent the message that “all men and women are equal under the law, and that women have full rights over their own bodies.”
In 2007 Katsav refused a plea bargain that would have kept him out of jail. In Israel rape holds a minimum prison sentence of four years.
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