Jordanian and Israeli sentenced to prison for spying on Egypt

The Supreme State Security Court sentenced a Jordanian man to 10 years and an Israeli man to 25 years imprisonment in absentia Wednesday on charges of espionage against Egypt and relaying strategic information regarding national security to Israel.

In the trial, locally referred to as the “Jordanian spy case,” which dates back to October 2011, Bashar Abu Zeid, in Jordanian telecommunications, was found guilty of liaising with Israeli intelligence officer Ofer Harare.

According to the state-owned Middle East News Agency, the Jordanian engineer was entrusted with planting telecommunication devices to spy on Egyptian security forces and to relay positions and numbers of police and army units on to the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad.

CNN Arabic reported that Abu Zeid was also accused of re-routing sensitive phone calls pertaining to Egypt’s national security to Mossad.

The Jordanian engineer has also been accused of attempting to recruit Egyptian nationals to spy on security communications and passing on the information via the Internet to Israeli intelligence. 

According to the AFP News Agency, Abu Zeid has repeatedly denied the charges leveled against him and has claimed that Egyptian prosecutors “tampered with the answers he gave during interrogation.”

Judicial sources cited by a number of news agencies confirm that the sentences of both Abu Zeid and Harare may be appealed.

In October 2011, the same month the Jordanian spy case was opened, Egyptian authorities released an Israeli man named Illan Grapel, who was locked-up on charges of espionage.  Following bilateral negotiations, Grapel was eventually released in exchange for 25 Egyptian prisoners held in Israel.