Former Israeli President Moshe Katsav To Be Defended By Yoram Shefte, Lawyer For Nazi War Criminal John Demjanjuk

JERUSALEM -- An Israeli attorney who defended an accused Nazi-era war criminal has joined the legal team of the disgraced former president, Moshe Katsav, an associate of the lawyer said Sunday.

Yoram Sheftel will help Katsav in a last attempt to overturn a rape conviction that sent him to prison last month, courts officials said. Tal Malik, an attorney at Sheftel's law firm, confirmed he would help defend Katsav.

Katsav, 66, is serving a seven-year term for raping an employee when he was a Cabinet minister in 1998, and of sexually harassing two other women when he was president from 2000 to 2007.

Israel's Supreme Court rejected Katsav's appeal in November and issued the prison sentence. But it has agreed to give Katsav another hearing.

Sheftel, who has called the Katsav conviction a farce, is no stranger to controversy.

He represented John Demjanjuk, who in the 1980s stood trial in Israel accused of being the notoriously brutal guard "Ivan the Terrible" at the Treblinka extermination camp.

Demjanjuk was convicted, sentenced to death, and then acquitted in 1993 when the Israeli Supreme Court overturned the ruling. Judges said Demjanjuk was a victim of mistaken identity.

While working on the case, Sheftel had acid thrown in his face. Since then, he has also defended Israeli mafia suspects, and he hosts an incendiary talk radio program.

In 2011, a German court convicted Demjanjuk, 91, of being an accessory to the murder of 28,000 people while guarding the Sobibor death camp in Poland.

Comments

[gkat19]

01:50 AM on 01/17/2012

It would be nice if you should had some information about Preseident Katzav's case before posting your comments.
He was convicted and sent to jail for 7 years, on rape charges, without a shred of evidence. It was all based on the women's testimony, no DNA, no supporting testimony or evidedence. Actually there was evidence that these women remained friendly to him throughout their ordeals...
None of them complained when it was happening many years ago, it was President Katzav who complained about one of the "victims" trying to extort him.
Imagine a scenario where he was a government Minister, then President of Israel, these ladies came out of the woodwork years after the incidents, and said they were raped numerous times by their boss, and always returned to work the next day without complaint.
I seems like this was a case of him abusing his power to get sexual favors, maybe making monetary promises, but that doesn't amout to rape.
When he was elected President, by the Israeli Parliament, the Knesset, there was also resentment by some, who preferred Shimon Peres, his successor. The decision to charge him could have been politically motivated too.

[BIG JOHN 73]

11:59 AM on 01/16/2012

I think anyone 66 years old would have a hard time of raping a young woman. I think she may have
wanted it.

[Cold in Michigan]

12:43 AM on 01/17/2012

Re-read the article...not the age given today and the date of the crime.

[musterseeds]

11:29 AM on 01/16/2012

We need send more money help them out.

[mudshark12]

01:22 AM on 01/16/2012

"Sheftel, who has called the Katsav conviction a farce, is no stranger to controversy." Aside from that he seems like a very confident and capable lawyer who handles high profile cases. I just hope this case is handled impartially and the TRUTH prevails, if Katsav is found guilty he should do time.

[Z601]

11:05 PM on 01/15/2012

1 down. 7 million to go. Long Live Glenn Greenwald.

[genealogylover]

07:31 PM on 01/15/2012

To All you Anti-Israeli's I can only say Be Glad YOUR people were Not persecuted for Thousands of years. I Love Jews and I honestly will Never say that about Many other Races/Religions. I think you r all Jealous of the Power the Jews have because they refuse to take any Crap from Anyone!

[Jeff Tenenbaum]

08:26 PM on 01/15/2012

It's a slippery slope to justify the well-being of one religion/race/culture at the expense of another. That's exactly what happened with the formation of the state of Israel. If it had been a peaceful process, and the people that were in the are of Palestine had openly invited and volunteered to help with the process, it would have been different. But that didn't happen. Instead it was a hostile take over. There is something to be said for knowing when violence and war are necessary, but when that's a country's de-facto measure for dealing with neighboring people that already hate them you can't exactly expect the cycle of violence to end. All this coming from a conservative (concerning Judaism, not politics) Jew. Yitzhak Rabin was one of the best leaders Israel had, not because almost "eradicated the enemy", but because he almost attained peace. That's the mark of a true leader.

[Stephan Pickering]

10:19 PM on 01/15/2012

Shalom & Erev tov...this kind of antisemitic distortion of historical facts just demonstrates Mr Tenenbaum is desparately trying to be acceptable to crucifictionist 4th reich paradigms. 'Palestine' was the semantic creation of European crucifictionists (the so-called 'bible scholars'), and the original UN resolutions DID create a 'Palestine' for the so-called 'Palestinians', viz. the Arabs in the area. Trans-Jordan was to be 'Palestine'. The Arabs (in particular, Saudi Arabia and Egypt) rejected the UN idea of a 'palestinian' state, attacked Eretz Yisro'el, and lost. In 1967, Eretz Yisro'el was able to re-obtain the areas which, for nearly 3000 years, were part of Eretz Yisro'el. Despite the lip-service, not ONE Arab country has made it possible for the 'palestinians' to reclaim their 'country', viz. Jordan. For decades, the protonazi leaders of the 'palestinians' have actively sought our extermination, not because of any 'hostile take over' (nonsensical circular reasoning, making Mr Tenenbaum sound more like a 4th reich acolyte), but because of Arab racism. 'the people that were in the area of Palestine [sic]' were, in actuality, mostly Jews living in Eretz Yisro'el for thousands of years. Mr Tenenbaum: you don't know what you're talking about; you want Eretz Yisro'el to surrender to genocide (what do you mean by being a 'conservative' Jew?). I'm afraid the discussion of Jewish historical truths stop prudently with you before their parallelism becomes close enough to yield logical and probable conclusions.
STEPHAN PICKERING / Chofetz Chayim benAvraham

[Bill Sampson]

07:09 PM on 01/15/2012

Makes perfect sense!

[peoplepersons]

06:40 PM on 01/15/2012

Find the guy with special ties to the Israeli Supreme court. That is what is going on here. A guy that works for the mob must have special reasons going down that road.

[SickOfBarf]

06:34 PM on 01/15/2012

Ah the marching dirt bags.

[rockysparks]

05:04 PM on 01/15/2012

Well, this lawyer is certainly not out to win any popularity contests. As a defender, he's an equal opportunity offender ...

[jerdog365]

03:42 PM on 01/15/2012

Isn't it ironic? Don't ya think? He defends Israelis and nazis, I guess there is not a lot of difference.

[bas1311]

06:21 PM on 01/15/2012

Completely classless!

[jerdog365]

07:52 PM on 01/15/2012

You are right, the zionists are completely classless.

[LudeDude714]

02:29 PM on 01/15/2012

A man is drafted or joins the service to protect his country, he goes off to fight and get wounded and comes home. He can no longer fight so they send him off to be a guard at a prison camp, he sees horrible things but cannot say anything as he is only a soldier, an enlisted man. He may only be there two weeks or for teh rest of the war, over a half a century later he is brought up on war crimes and accused of being an accessory to the murder for all the people who died at that camp. Even if he was only there two weeks he still gets charged with all the murders, even though as in all prisoner of war camps in every country prisoners are executed for trying to excape or doing something wrong. These camps were horrible and a terrible time in our history but it is still wrong to go after the men who had no say in where they were deployed. Soldiers of every country have families and will join to fight for their country, they do not care about the politics, they care about their country. I know for a fact that prisoner at GITMO have been abused and tortured, I know people who have been there, it is wrong but they had orders to do these things.

[bas1311]

06:22 PM on 01/15/2012

Just so you know, concentration camps weren't exactly prisoner of war camps.

[LudeDude714]

02:18 PM on 01/15/2012

"a German court convicted Demjanjuk, 91, of being an accessory to the murder of 28,000 people while guarding the Sobibor death camp in Poland." I said it before and I will say it again, it is wrong to punish men just for being soldiers. Go after the men who gave the orders not the enlistedmen who followed orders. I was in the service and everyone who has served knows you have to follow orders. It was much worse in Nazi Germany, if you refused you and your family were arrested. They had Jewish prisoners that helped them by lying to and leeding prisoners to death, these trustees did so to stay alive I do not blame them just I do not blame the guards. The pilots that dropped the A-bombs on Japan vaporized innocent men women and children and cause birth defects for decades after the war, they are not to blame, they were following orders and they knew not to refuse to carry those orders out. We must not punish men for being soldiers.

[SickOfBarf]

06:36 PM on 01/15/2012

LudeDude, do you really think the power hands are going to get prosecuted? That would mean prosecuting the Pope.

We don't live in that kind of world. It's the little guy who ALWAYS pays.

[Bob Dionysus]

02:10 PM on 01/15/2012

He's defending an Israeli? Sounds like his specialty is defending Nazis.

[offcenterlevi]

02:40 PM on 01/15/2012

Sadly there no longer seems to be much difference.

[Somewhereinthemiddle149]

06:00 PM on 01/15/2012

Really? What are you implying "levi"?

[Marilyn OBrien Pipia]

12:47 PM on 01/15/2012

same criminal type