Moshe Katsav
The disgraced former Israeli President, Moshe Katsav, has arrived at Maasiyahu prison near Tel Aviv to begin a seven-year sentence for rape, the BBC reports.
Leaving his home in the town of Kiryat Malachi, he insisted he was innocent and accused the state of "executing" him and "burying a man alive".
Katsav's case has entranced and horrified the Israeli nation.
He was convicted a year ago, but was allowed to remain free while he appealed against the conviction.
Katsav, who turned 66 on Monday, resigned from the largely ceremonial post of president two weeks before his seven-year term was to expire in 2007, under a plea bargain that would have allowed him to escape a prison sentence.
But he then rejected the deal he had struck with prosecutors, vowing to prove his innocence in court.
In November, the Supreme Court unanimously upheld his conviction for raping a former employee when he was a cabinet minister in the 1990s, and for sexually harassing two other women while president.
"Moshe Katsav will go to jail as planned and will receive the same conditions as other prisoners," Israel's minister for internal security, Yitzhak Aharonovich, told Israel Radio on Tuesday.
Suicide watch
Katsav will be placed in a wing at Maasiyahu that is reserved for observant Jews, and will share a cell with ex-government minister Shlomo Benizri in a move intended to ease his transition, reports say.
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