Arrested Egyptian confesses to passing military information to the Mossad in scheme that included Egyptians and Palestinians.
By YASSER OKBISinai Peninsula (brown, naturey) 521(photo credit: WIKIMEDIA COMMONS)
Egyptian security forces have uncovered an Israeli spy network operating in northern Sinai that included Egyptians and Palestinians, the Egyptian newspaper Al- Akhbar reported on Sunday.The spy ring was discovered after the arrest of the principal suspect, an Egyptian resident of Rafah who gave a statement to police implicating an additional eight operatives, according to the report.Security forces had been alerted about the principle suspect’s activities four months before he was detained, when they began to follow him and record all his telephone conversations.These included exchanges with his handlers, said the report, and when he was confronted with these conversations, he identified the other members of the ring.The security forces claim that during this long period of surveillance the principle suspect often traveled between Rafah and Cairo.After his arrest, the suspect confessed that he had transferred military information at the Mossad’s request and that he had used a cellular phone from the Israeli company Orange to stay in contact with his handlers, which he claimed was a cellular network that difficulted the tracing of calls.Palestinian news agency Ma’an on Sunday quoted a senior Egyptian official saying that his country had taken the Rafah resident into custody. The official reportedly said that the arrested man was in contact with Arabic speaking Israeli intelligence officers and Egyptians and Palestinians working for Israeli intelligence services.Jerusalem Post staff contributed to this report.
