Former Israeli President Moshe Katzav will remain subject to a curfew, requiring that he return to his private residence every evening, until the end of 2018, a parole board ruled on Tuesday.
Katzav, who served as Israel’s 8th President, from 2000 to 2007, was convicted in December 2010 on two counts of rape, following an investigation beginning in 2006 into the president’s relationship with staffers.
The former president was sentenced on March 22nd, 2011 to seven years in prison. The Supreme Court later upheld the sentence.
Katzav began serving his sentence in December 2011, but was granted an early release from prison by a parole board in December 2016.
Since his release, Katzav has been subject to a daily curfew, requiring that he remain every day from the evening till the morning.
Through his attorney, Zion Amir, Katzav appealed the curfew, requesting that the restriction be lifted nearly a year after his release from prison.
You can't have a normal, reasonable life," Amir said, according to Yediot Aharonot. "A man can't go out—not to a wedding, a bar mitzvah, or just to see a movie. And the most important thing—he couldn't go see his wife at the hospital after she had surgery."
"It's important to stress it was the Prisoner Rehabilitation Authority that asked to lift the curfew, after filing two very detailed reports," Amir added.
But on Tuesday, a parole board rejected the president’s request, leaving the curfew in place. The curfew will be lifted automatically in December 2018, at the end of Katzav’z full seven-year term, of which five years were served behind bars.