Channels

Equipment helped intercept international calls (Illustration)
Photo: AP

Report: Israeli's Egyptian spy network exposed

Egypt's Al-Ahram newspaper claims Jordanian engineer smuggled phone chips to help Israelis intercept incoming calls on senior officials' phones

Over six months after Egypt announced that Israeli citizen Ofir Harrari, and Jordanian citizen Ibrahim abu-Zaid would be put on trial for espionage, new details were revealed Friday in Egypt's Al-Ahram newspaper.

 

According to the newspaper, the two agreed to intercept incoming international calls to Egypt in order to allow Israeli intelligence to listen in on the conversations. Cairo suspects that the intercepted calls included those made by senior officials in Egypt.

 

Related stories:

 

The affair came to light when abu-Zaid allegedly made contact with "Israeli intelligence operative" Ofir Harrari. The Israeli will be tried in absentia as Egyptian authorities failed to capture him.

 

Abu-Zaid will be charged with "spying for a foreign country with the purpose of harming Egyptian national interest," over his suspected smuggling of cellular phone chips which were used to transfer international calls.

 

Moreover, it was claimed that Harrari asked the Jordanian engineer to purchase 300 cellular phone parts belonging to the Egyptian Mobinel cellular network and send them to Israel. The Egyptians claim that the Jordanian sent the parts to Israel last March, hidden in toys.

 

The engineer's interrogation led to the arrest of four more people employed by the cellular company, one of whom is an American citizen. The four are accused of agreeing to establish a relay station just two kilometers away from the Egyptian border without first receiving the proper licenses and authorization.

 

The indictment also states that they placed a 70 meter antenna to help in intercepting the international calls.

 

The Egyptian authority's suspicions were raised due to the fact that the relay station was placed in an isolated area with a population of less than 600 people. The indictment claims that there is an Israeli closed military zone nearby.

 

 

 


פרסום ראשון: 02.24.12, 14:50
 new comment
Warning:
This will delete your current comment