July 15 (Reuters) - Shimon Peres was sworn in as Israel's president on Sunday, a national honour that crowns the political career of the Nobel Peace Prize laureate and 83-year-old statesman.

Here are some details about Peres:

* Peres was born in August 1923 in Wolozyn (Volozhin) in what was then Poland. He immigrated as a youth to what was then British Mandatory Palestine and rose through the political ranks as an aide to David Ben-Gurion, Israel's first prime minister, with whom he helped found Mapai, precursor to Labour.

* As a defence official early in his public career, Peres was instrumental in sealing a deal with France to build Israel's Dimona nuclear reactor. Israel is widely believed to have used it to produce atomic weapons, though Israel has not confirmed this.

* The late Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin once labelled Peres an "indefatigable schemer" for his political manoeuvring. Political satirists saw him as a lifelong loser for failing to win a decisive election in the five times he ran for prime minister.

* Peres won a Nobel Peace Prize in 1994 for his role in achieving the Oslo interim peace deal with the Palestinians, an agreement that has since been frayed by Israeli-Palestinian violence. Admired by many Israelis for holding to his dovish ideals, some scorn him as an unrealistic dreamer.

* Peres was ousted as leader of the centre-left Labour in a 2005 leadership poll, suffering a surprise defeat by trade union leader Amir Peretz. Later in the year, he bolted his party to help found the centrist Kadima party alongside Ehud Olmert and Ariel Sharon, the former prime minister in a coma since suffering a stroke.

* Peres succeeded Moshe Katzav, who resigned from the presidency in June after admitting -- in a plea bargain for a dropped rape charge -- to committing sex crimes against a woman employee and sexually harassing another.

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