2 Israel men arrested for selling information to foreign agent in Egypt

Two Israeli men were arrested last week for selling sensitive information regarding a defence facility to a foreign agent in Egypt.

The suspects, two relatives in their 20s, also face a series of charges including undermining the security of the state, possessing confidential information and collecting confidential information.

According to the Jerusalem Post, one of the suspects works at the facility and collected the information almost seven years ago, while his relative helped him protect the material.

The sensitive information was handed over to the relative’s 14-year-old sister who transferred it to her friend and asked her to return it to the suspect who was not working at the facility.

However, the girl failed to return the materials and the suspects therefore attacked her during a school trip to northern Israel. Following the attack, the relative drove toward the Egyptian border with the materials to hand it over to a foreign agent.

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Having failed to get in touch with the Israeli suspect, his parents contacted the authorities, who discovered that he had crossed into Sinai without notifying anyone and was arrested early last week.

After having their remand extended several times, they were released on parole and placed under house arrest earlier this week.

Yehuda Shosan, the attorney for one of the suspects, toldIYnet: “This is a completely coincidental sequence of events from which Israel Police made a movie, which at best could be a comedy film, which has nothing to do with the suspicions.”

“This is a young man, without any criminal record, absolutely innocent, who has never received any classified material and has never been handed any material of this type, and certainly did not contact a foreign agent.”