Katsav lawyer dismisses 'Beit Hanassi Aleph' lie detector test

Attorney tells 'Post' such tests are "populist" evidence that liars can also successfully pass.

By DAN IZENBERG
aleph 224.88 (photo credit: Channel 2)
aleph 224.88
(photo credit: Channel 2)
One of former president Moshe Katsav's lawyers dismissed on Tuesday the significance of a lie detector test taken by 'Beit Hanassi Aleph' indicating that she was telling the truth when she said she had had full sexual relations with Katsav. The former president has denied any kind of intimacy with Beit Hanassi Aleph or any of the other women who complained to the police about his behavior toward them. "Neither the police nor the state prosecution believed Beit Hanassi Aleph, and the High Court of Justice accepted the attorney-general's decision not to include her in the indictment against Katsav," attorney Avraham Lavie told The Jerusalem Post. "The decision was based on acceptable evidence in a criminal procedure. The results of a lie detector test are not acceptable evidence. They are 'populist' evidence that liars can also successfully pass. Therefore, the fact that she passed it has no relevance for us." Meanwhile, Beit Hanassi Aleph's lawyer, Ariel Bendor, said that the results of the lie detector test only strengthened his demand that the police hold a confrontation between his client and Katsav. It is the second lie detector test to upheld her statement that she had had full sexual relations with the former president. Bendor and attorney Eldad Yaniv petitioned the High Court on May 14 to order the police to hold a meeting between the two. "We maintain that when someone says she was raped and the other one denies it, it is essential to confront accuser and accused," said Bendor. "The courts have handed down rulings to that effect." In the petition, Beit Hanassi Aleph's lawyers wrote that Attorney-General Menahem Mazuz had concluded that "Katsav's consistent claim that he never had intimate relations with Beit Hanassi Aleph was a lie. Precisely in view of his position, Mazuz ought to order the police to hold a confrontation between her and Katzav as part of what should be an essential completion of the investigation into her case. The confrontation can help reveal the nature and depth of the relations between the two and help explain the problems [the prosecution has had] with the evidence [regarding Beit Hanassi Aleph]." Bendor added that if Katsav was so sure of his innocence, why did he refuse to meet with his client. Bendor and Yaniv attached the results of the lie detector test to their reaction to the state's response to their petition. The state asked the court to reject the petition out of hand because it came too late and because the High Court had already ruled on the question of Beit Hanassi Aleph's exclusion from the indictment. Bendor explained to the court that Beit Hanassi Aleph had not been asked whether Katsav had raped her in the lie detector test, because rape involved feelings and these tests could only assess the truth about facts.