Katsav orders removal of address from Web site

By GREER FAY CASHMAN
Following the controversy aroused by the fact that he published his accusatory address of January 24 on the presidential Web site, President Moshe Katsav has given instructions that the material that was published in both Hebrew and English be removed so as not to incite further malicious gossip and not to provoke a further witch hunt, he said. Objections to the publication of Katsav's attack on the media, the police and on the Attorney General were voiced last week by MK Haim Oron, who subsequently brought the matter to the attention of Attorney General Menachem Mazuz, whom he asked to order that the contents of Katsav's provocative address be removed. Oron said that the allegations against Katsav were against the citizen and not the President and that it was the citizen who had defended himself in the much publicized address that was broadcast to the nation and the world. Under such circumstances, said Oron, Katsav had no right to make use of the president's Web site for his personal use. Mazuz referred Oron to acting President Dalia Itzik, but Katsav decided to pre-empt any action on her part and asked that Beit Hanassi staff delete the address from the Web site.