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Israeli president's leave of absence approved by MPs

Israeli lawmakers yesterday approved President Moshe Katsav's request to temporarily suspend himself from office over a looming rape indictment.

In a roll-call vote broadcast live on radio and television, 13 members of the Knesset house committee voted to approve Katsav's request for a three-month leave of absence, while 11 voted against.

Katsav angrily denied the accusations against him at a press conference on Wednesday, saying he would suspend himself from the largely ceremonial post, but refused to resign.

"The law does not oblige me to resign," a visibly heated Katsav said, lashing out at his accusers whom he said were conducting a witch-hunt.

"I will not give in to blackmail," he said.

The move allows Katsav, facing the most serious charges ever levelled against an Israeli leader, to retain his presidential immunity from prosecution.

Parliament's house committee was due to meet yesterday to consider whether to approve the leave of absence. If it does, parliament speaker Dalia Itzik would assume Katsav's functions, becoming Israel's first woman president.

Thirty lawmakers have already signed a petition to start impeachment proceedings against the 61-year-old president, whose seven-year term of office expires later this year.

An impeachment process, unprecedented in the history of the Jewish state, requires the support of 90 lawmakers in the 120-member Knesset.

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert -- himself facing a criminal corruption probe -- added his voice to the growing chorus calling on the Iranian-born Katsav to resign.

"There is no doubt in my heart that the president cannot continue with his functions and he will have to leave the presidency," Olmert said at a security conference near Tel Aviv.

Opinion polls released yesterday showed between 66 percent and 71 percent of Israelis want Katsav -- the Jewish state's first president from a right-wing party -- to resign over the scandal.
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