Iran tried to kill Israeli businessman in Cyprus, Bennett says

The office of Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett yesterday accused Iran of attempting to assassinate Israeli billionaire Teddy Sagi in Cyprus last week.

“Regarding some of the reports last night about the incident in Cyprus, I would like to clarify, on behalf of the security establishment, that this was an act of terror that was orchestrated by Iran against Israeli business people living in Cyprus,” Bennett’s spokesman Matan Sidi said in a statement.

“This wasn’t a criminal incident, and businessman Teddy Sagi wasn’t the [specific] target of the attack,” he added. Sidi implied that there were other targets in addition to Sagi, but gave no details.

Iran has denied the Israeli accusations.

“This regime is always making such a baseless allegation against the Islamic Republic of Iran,” the Islamic Republic’s embassy in the Cypriot capital, Nicosia, said in a statement to Reuters.

Last week, the Cypriot police arrested a 38-year-old Azeri man who had arrived in the country using a Russian passport after crossing from Turkish-occupied northern Cyprus.

According to reports, the man is suspected of being hired to carry out a series of attacks on Israeli targets.

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