Two Egyptians, 2 Israelis suspected of spying for Israel

Two Israelis and two Egyptians accused of spying for Mossad, Israel’s intelligence agency, were referred by Egypt’s General Prosecution to Cairo Criminal Court Tuesday. 

The prosecution's statement said that two Mossad agents, Samuel Ben Zeev and David Wisemen, as well as two Egyptians, Ramzi Mohamed and Sahar Ibrahim, are accused of forming a spy network for Israel, the UK’s BBC reported. 

According to the prosecution, the Egyptian defendants are currently in prison and an arrest warrant has been issued for the Israeli officers whose whereabouts are unknown.

The two Egyptians are accused of providing the Israeli officers with information about Egypt with the intent of “damaging national interests in return for money, gifts and sex.”

Mohamed, the male defendant, is accused of “having sexual relations with women working for the Mossad,” and “recruiting Sahar, who is a journalist, to take advantage of her profession and connections with many men working in different positions in the state,” according to Reuters. 

Reuters reported that Mohamed is alleged to have voluntarily sought to collaborate with Israel’s intelligence services during a stay in Italy in 2009 in the hope of receiving money.

The prosecution's statement said that during questioning, the defendants confessed to the crime of spying and revealed the information they reported to Mossad.

No reaction has been reported from the Israeli side as yet.

Egypt has had a peace treaty with Israel since 1979, yet a number of individuals have been accused of spying for Israel since then.

The most famous was the case of Azzam Azzam, an Israeli who was arrested in Egypt in 1996 and convicted of helping send information about Egyptian industrial cities to Mossad. He was sentenced to 15 years’ hard labor. He was released in late 2004 in exchange for six jailed Egyptian students who were accused of planning terrorist attacks in Israel.