News

CAIRO: The Supreme State Security Court sentenced Thursday an Egyptian businessman to 25 years in prison on charges of spying for Israel.

Two Israeli Mossad intelligence officers were handed down similar sentences in absentia. Official spokesman of the Egyptian Interior Ministry Fouad Allam told Daily News Egypt that if the "two Israeli fugitives are currently located in Israel, they will never be handed in."

The two men were identified in December 2010 as Idi Moshe and Joseph Demore.

Allam said the interior ministry could not comment on a judicial order. "The ministry is only in charge of putting the verdict into force … and arresting fugitives if they are present in Egypt," he explained.

Tareq Abdel-Razek, who worked in the import-export business, was arrested in August and charged four months later along with the two Israelis for seeking to recruit agents in Egypt, Syria and Lebanon to spy for Israel.

According to the charges presented by the state security prosecutor last December, the three men were conspiring to seek out officials working in the telecommunication industry who might be amenable to supplying information to Israel. The charge list accused Abdel-Razek, of searching for suitable Syrian and Lebanese candidates who would then be approached by an Israeli operative in Syria.

He was also accused of trying to recruit younger Egyptians for information, and two telephone centers had been ... >>>