“This is a sad day”, President Shimon Peres said on Tuesday in response to the sentencing of his predecessor Moshe Katzav.“This is a sad day but everyone is equal before the law,” Peres said during a tour of the northern border.Asked if he thought that Katsav’s statue should be removed from the garden at Beit Hanassi in Jerusalem, Peres said that it was not necessary to reject the past.“The legal process has not yet ended but I do not think that we need to change history,” Peres said. “This is not Russia and we do not need to change the past for the good and bad.”Peres said that the conviction and sentencing of Katzav did not have a direct impact on the presidential institution in Israel.
