Mark Gobell On Gardening Leave
Joined: 24 Jul 2006 Posts: 4529
|
Posted: Sun May 25, 2008 7:29 pm Post subject: Israel charges Iran spy suspect |
|
|
BBC wrote: |
Page last updated at 17:14 GMT, Sunday, 25 May 2008 18:14 UK
Israel charges Iran spy suspect
An Iranian-born Israeli has been arrested and charged by the Israeli authorities with spying for Iran, police say.
The man, who cannot be named for legal reasons, allegedly confessed to passing information to Iranian agents in Turkey while in Istanbul in 2006.
Charges were pressed behind closed doors and no other details were given.
Last year, Israel's Shin Bet security agency said it had foiled an Iranian plot to recruit Israelis as spies.
Earlier this year, an Israeli army psychiatrist, David Shamir, received a five-year prison sentence for attempting to make contact with foreign powers including Iran, with a view to selling them classified defence information.
Large communities
The Iranian-Israeli charged with spying lives abroad and was arrested on 8 May by police and Shin Bet agents while visiting Israel, Israeli police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said.
He told interrogators he had repeatedly visited the Iranian consulate in Istanbul and had given the Iranians names of acquaintances serving in the Israeli security forces, the spokesman said.
A court banned publication of the suspect's name or further details of the case.
About 135,000 Israeli Jews have Iranian origins and Iran, though a bitter enemy of the Israeli state, is still home to the largest Jewish community in the Middle East outside Israel - about 25,000 people.
Turkey, one of the few Muslim states to have strong relations with Israel, is often used by Israelis of Iranian extraction seeking to obtain travel documents to visit family.
Because Iran does not admit visitors with Israeli passports, they apply for Iranian passports instead.
In April 2007, Shin Bet accused Iranian intelligence of seeking to recruit as spies Israeli Jews of Iranian descent who went on family visits to Iran. |
Source
Wow.
Quote: | In April 2007, Shin Bet accused Iranian intelligence of seeking to recruit as spies Israeli Jews of Iranian descent who went on family visits to Iran. |
April 2007 eh?
That would be April 15th 2007 to be precise, as reported by various meedju on April 17th.
Various "articles" covered that "event":
Haaretz
Israel Insider
JTA News
Jerusalem Post
Ynet News
Two stories, separated by an interval of 1 year, 1 month and 9 days.
Made in Israel. ..
Hat tip to Jewish Refugees blog
Clearly not David Shamir then:
DEBKAfile wrote: | DEBKAfile Reports: Dr. (Res. Maj.) David Shamir’s failed attempt to spy for Iran, Hamas and Russia, was fumbling and amateurish
November 23, 2007, 11:54 AM (GMT+02:00)
The most serious aspect of the affair was the willingness of an IDF officer – one serving as a psychiatrist with the rank of major in the Medical Corps - to spy for Israel’s enemies. His offer was not taken up because he gave himself away as a stranger to the ropes of contemporary espionage. But had he been recruited, he could have wrought untold damage to national security before being caught.
DEBKAfile’s intelligence sources note that the would-be spy must have been extraordinarily naïve not to assume that any e-mail or fax sent out from his home to the Iranian foreign ministry and consulates in London and Ankara would not be intercepted and read by every Western intelligence agency, not to mention the Israeli services.
Thousands of messages like his, offering espionage services and classified information for hard cash, reach the world’s undercover agencies. They are ignored when they come at random and from an unknown source.
Only nine days elapsed from Dr. Shamir’s detention on Nov. 14 to his indictment by the Tel Aviv district court Friday, Nov. 23. The investigation was brief because he had not got beyond illegally soliciting the enemy, the evidence of which was already to hand. |
_________________ The Medium is the Massage - Marshall McLuhan. |
|