Fresh details have emerged in the case of a Palestinian man an Israeli court convicted of "rape by deception" after he was accused of posing as a Jewish man in order to have sex with a Jewish-Israeli woman.

The case caused international outrage when it was first reported, in July, but now an Israeli newspaper has reported that the conviction was the result of a plea bargain over a violent rape.

Ha'ir, a Tel Aviv weekly and part of the newspaper group that owns Haaretz, published extracts from the victim's unsealed testimony. It also reported that the prosecution had agreed to the reduced charge of "rape by deception" because of the victim's confused account and concern at facing another court appearance.

Saber Kushour, from East Jerusalem, said he had had consensual sex with the woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, within minutes of meeting her on a West Jerusalem street.

He was sentenced to 18 months in prison after the Jerusalem district court ruled he was guilty of rape by deception. One of the judges said that, although the sex had been consensual, the woman involved "would not have consented if she had not believed Kushour was Jewish".

It was reported at the time that Kashur had been charged with rape and indecent assault but that those charges were reduced after a plea bargain arrangement.

This week, Ha'ir reported that, according to her testimony, the woman had met Kashur on a street in West Jerusalem and chatted with him for a few minutes before he invited her into a nearby building, claiming it was his workplace. Asked why she had agreed, she reportedly told the court: "I looked for someone to put my trust in."

Once inside the building, the woman says she was raped and then left naked and bleeding. Part of her testimony reads: "He said that if I don't stay silent and I don't resist, then it would like end faster and it wouldn't be like ... he wouldn't use force. I still resisted him, and it was forced."

The newspaper describes a women in her late 20s who had been abused by her father from an early age and forced by him to become a sex worker. She was living at a women's shelter when the incident occurred, and was subsequently taken to a psychiatric hospital with a section for female victims of sexual crimes.

The prosecution, it is claimed, agreed to the plea bargain that reduced the charge to rape by deception in order to prevent a long cross-examination of a traumatised victim. Ha'ir also reports that the woman had filed 14 previous complaints, mostly for sexual offences, some of which did not result in convictions owing to lack of evidence or because of questions around the veracity of the complaint. The prosecution was concerned that Kashur's legal team would question the women over all these cases in court.

[Thursday 9 September: Since this article was published, Kushour has responded, saying the fact that he had been released from house arrest (pending an appeal) backed his version of events. He adds: "I have no prior convictions – this is the first time, while she has a long history of rape charges. She still claims I raped her – but even the prosecution, which is supposed to represent her, does not believe her."]

Describing the reduced charge, deputy prosecutor Danny Wittman told Ha'ir: "Plea bargains never match the original narrative of the plaintiff, because the two sides have to bridge the gap between them and reach an agreement. In this case, we gave up on the 'forcible' element and agreed to a rewriting of the indictment, according to which the defendant had sex with the woman with her consent ... obtained with deception."

• This article was amended on Thursday 9 September to include a response from Saber Kushour