Details of Egypt spy's movements emerge

Ayman Farouk, Tuesday 21 Dec 2010

Authorities have revealed detailed information about the movements of the alleged Egyptian spy for Israel

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Egypt's State Security prosecutor's office announced yesterday charges against an Egyptian man arrested for his alleged role in an Israeli spy ring. At the conference authorities said that the alleged spy, Tariq Abdel Razeq Hassan has been referred to the emergency state security supreme court for trial by the attorney general.

In the official prosecution report, Hassan and his two Israeli accomplices are charged with having been involved in undercover operations for Israel, both in Egypt and abroad, between 2007 and 2010.

The report details three specific charges against Hassan.

The first, is spying for a foreign country with the intention of harming national interests by cooperating with his two co-accused and offering them information on Egyptians working in the communications industry to be recruited to work for the Israeli secret service.

The second charge is for carrying out actions that threaten the political relations between Egypt and Syria by offering information on several Syrian and Lebanese citizens to his Israeli accomplices, also charged in the case.

The final charge is accepting money from agents working on behalf of a foreign country with the intention of harming national interests in return for the amount of $37,000.

The indicted Israelis, Idid Moushay and Joseph Daymour, are charged with conspiring with Hassan to commit the crimes with which he has been charged. With their financial assistance he was able to travel to India, Thailand, Syria, Nepal and Laos. They also provided him with an encrypted computer on which to save data and communicate with them.

Moushay and Daymour are also charged with providing Hassan with a stated amount of money to harm national interests. 

The Attorney General, Hisham Badawi, referred the three accused to the emergency state security court. Hassan remains detained -- his two accomplices are at large.

In the course of their investigations, Egyptian authorities have been able to ascertain a chain of events from Hassan's first contact with Israeli intelligence up until his arrest in August this year. In the prosecution report obtained by Ahram Online, the sequence of events is documented as follows:

-Hassan initiated contact (with Mossad) while in China by sending the Israeli secret service an email offering his services to them as an Egyptian citizen.

-He travelled to China in 1992, after finishing his technical degree, and studied Kung Fu classes for two years before returning to Egypt. When he returned home he worked as a Kung Fu coach in a sporting club but financial trouble meant he left again for China in 2007 to find work. When no work materialized, he contacted Mossad in May of the same year.

-In August 2007, Hassan received a phone call from Joseph Daymour who approached him as a Mossad spokesperson and asked him to meet in Thailand. When Hassan could not obtain a visa for Thailand Daymour told him to go to Nepal instead. After waiting for fifteen days he was summoned to India by Daymour.  

-In September 2007, Hassan went to India where he received an email from Daymour instructing him to go to the Israeli embassy. There Hassan met Daymour who quizzed him on his past before giving him a sum of $1800 as compensation for expenses he had incurred.

-The two men next met in January at the Israeli embassy in Thailand where Hassan underwent a lie detector test. At the end of this trip he received another $1400, again to cover his travelling expenses. When Daymour later told Hassan he had passed the test he rewarded him with $1000. Later that day, Hassan accompanied Daymour to a restaurant where he was introduced to Idi Moushay who would be his trainer.

-Hassan was trained in how to contact certain people and was given a secret email through which they could stay in touch. He was then sent back to China and instructed to set up an import and export company, a cover for his intelligence gathering work. Hassan was given $5000 to set up the company with the promise of an $800 monthly salary as well as bonuses and travel costs.

-During a visit to Thailand in May 2008, Moushay gave him the address and password for a website advertising job vacancies that was used by Mossad to identify potential recruits in Syria. From among applicants for jobs in industries such as olive oil and confectionary, Hassan was charged with compiling background reports on them for Moushay to identify those worth approaching.

-Hassan travelled to Syria under the name Taher Hassan and met the candidates Moushay had selected. While there he also reported back on Syrian security measures. For this he received a sum of $2500.    

-In August, Hassan went to Thailand and met Moushay who introduced him to a Mossad officer who gave his name as Abu Shady. Hassan was instructed to meet with another Mossad agent in Syria and give him a sum of $2500 in addition to $500 worth of presents. Upon completing of this assignment Hassan was paid $3100.

-In February 2009 he travelled to Laos where Moushay gave him an encrypted laptop for him to safely store data.      

-In March of this year Hassan travelled to Macau, in China, where Moushay instructed him to find employees in Egyptian communication firms and who could act as potential recruits for the Israeli secret services. Accordingly, they set up a website under the name Hoshtek with a Hong Kong identified ISP address advertising vacancies in the field of communication in Egypt. As with the Syrian operation, Hassan reported to Moushay on the backgrounds of applicants.

-Hassan said he received $37,000 in total for his work for Mossad.

Hassan's family has denied having any knowledge of his activities. His mother telling has said she was shocked when she learned the news of his arrest. She described her son as an "introvert without any friends". As far as she knows, her son travelled to China where he learned Kung Fu -- while there she says his family sent him money to continue his education. She added that he returned four years later to work as a Kung Fu trainer at a private sporting club after which he travelled back to China. She said she had not heard from him since he returned to China.

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