Ruling elite, generals, judges, media figures held accountable worldwide-VII

On March 22, 2011 an Israeli court had awarded a seven-year sentence to the country’s former President, Moshe Katsav, on rape charges.

According to Al-Jazeera TV, the judges had also handed the former Israeli leader a two-year suspended sentence and ordered him to pay a fine.

President Katsav was convicted in December 2010 of rape, sexual harassment, indecent acts and obstruction of justice, following a four-year scandal that had rattled Israel.

The maximum sentence for rape in Israel is 16 years behind bars.

Apart from accusations of corruption etc, the sitting Italian Premier, Silvio Berlusconi, is also confronted with a host of sex scandals, which also led to his divorce in 2009. In 2009, Berlusconi was accused of having an illicit relationship with a girl called Noemi Letizia, though he had denied it vehemently.

The Italian Press, including the famous newspapers “la Republica” and “Avvenire” had also printed a lot of truth and gossip about the Premier’s friendship with a woman named Palazzo Grazioli, his ‘paid associations’ with a retired actress Patrizia D’Addario and a Bulgarian actress Michelle Bonev.

And then came the teenage Moroccan belly dancer and alleged prostitute, Karima El Mahroug alias Ruby Rubacuori, who claimed in November 2010 to have been given $10,000 by Berlusconi at ‘nude parties’ at his private villas.

According to a BBC report, although Berlusconi’s trial had begun on April 6 this year, it was adjourned till May 31 because neither the Italian Premier nor the alleged underage prostitute, Karima, was in court.

The BBC said, “Berlusconi faces up to 15 years in jail if found guilty. Over the weeks and months ahead, 20,000 pages of evidence will be presented and about 40 women will be called as witnesses.”

On June 16, 1998 the former Nicaraguan president Daniel Ortega appeared in court to claim parliamentary immunity against sex abuse charges brought by his stepdaughter.

The BBC reported: “Mr Ortega, who was accompanied by his wife Rosario Murillo, said the accusations were a plot to undermine him. He presented documents to the judge showing his membership of the National Assembly and his immunity from prosecution. His stepdaughter, 30-year-old Zoilamerica Narvaez, said Mr Oretega repeatedly abused her from the age of 11.”

Former Zimbabwean President Canaan Banana was also arrested on charges of sodomy, following allegations made during the murder trial of his former bodyguard. Banana was found guilty of 11 charges of sodomy, attempted sodomy and indecent assault in 1998. He denied all charges, terming them “pathological lies.”

President Banana was sentenced in January 1999 to 10 years in jail, but he actually served six months in an open prison before being released in January 2001.

Former US Vice President Al Gore was accused by a US media outlet “The National Enquirer” on its website that he had ‘unwanted’ sexual contact with a massage technician in October 2006. Though Gore’s attorneys had denied the allegations, police detectives did sniff around a lot for evidence after the massage practitioner’s lawyer had reported to Portland police that the former US Vice President had sexually assaulted her in his hotel room.

Anwar Ibrahim, the former Malaysian Deputy Prime Minister, was sentenced to nine years for sodomy in 2000. In 2004, the Federal Court reversed his conviction and he was released due to contradictions in the prosecution’s case. In July 2008, he was again alleged of sodomising one of his male aides.

A four-time US Senator Bob Packwood had allegedly harassed 29 women. According to CBS News, the US Senate was able to prove 17 of the 29 incidents and Packwood had to resign.

On April 7, 2010, the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas had fired one of his aides amid a sex scandal. According to the CNN, “Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas had fired his chief of staff despite an inquiry into a sex scandal that cleared the second-in-command of wrongdoing. Rafiq Husseini was accused of using the power of his office to extract sex from a female job seeker.

The scandal had erupted in February (2010) after a video was made public allegedly showing Husseini undressing in a bedroom and calling for a woman to join him in bed. The president fired Husseini at the recommendation of a committee that Abbas created to look into the allegations.”

(To be continued)