Former President Moshe Katsav and his defense team on Tuesday called off the plea bargain they had signed with the prosecution at the opening of Katsav's trial.

"They have been combing my flesh with iron prongs for the past 20 months. I wish to put an end to it and prove my innocence," Katsav reportedly said in the courtroom. "I am aware of the meaning and ramifications and I choose the difficult but correct path."

"This is a decision that has been ripening in me for a long time and today it is ripe. This has nothing to do with the court decisions in recent days," he added.

Katsav entered the Jerusalem Magistrates' Court with his wife Gila after circling the court in his car for nearly half an hour, delaying the opening of his trial.

The former president's car was thronged by vocal women's rights protesters and camera crews and far-Right wing activists yelled slogans at him for his support of the 2005 disengagement plan.

"The president's decision was made over the past month and was arrived at after consultations with us," Katsav's attorney Avigdor Feldman told reporters after the president left the court. "He asked us if the evidence proved any guilt. After we went reviewed [the evidence] we told the president that it does not prove any guilt and that he can call off the plea bargain if he wishes to."

"We believe that Moshe Katsav, according to the evidence, is innocent," he said.

Zion Amir, another of Katsav's attorneys, said: "The president was deliberating from the very beginning and throughout [the affair]. He had many reasons [to call off the deal] that all came together and prompted him to make this decision. Check the archives and the photographs almost two years back - what have you done to this man that led him to this moment."

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