By DPA,
Tel Aviv : Police in Israel have arrested a 55-year-old Iranian-born Israeli on suspicion of passing sensitive intelligence information to Tehran, the police have said.
The suspect was arrested earlier this month and brought before a court Sunday.
According to reports, the suspect, who was not identified, agreed to cooperate with Iranian intelligence in order to pass them personal information on employees in the security establishment. He apparently made contact with his handlers during visits to Turkey.
However, the suspect’s lawyers has denied the charges.
Israeli media reported that during his interrogation the suspect admitted to visiting the Iranian Consulate in Istanbul during a stay in Turkey in 2006. Those meetings resulted in his agreeing to cooperate with Iranian intelligence.
The Y-net news site reported that the Shin Bet internal intelligence organsation believes that Iranian intelligence is trying to recruit Israelis of Iranian descent to spy for Tehran.
The organization is apparently following up on some 10 leads suggesting Israelis who have families in the Islamic Republic were pressured into becoming Iranian agents. One lead led to an arrest, which failed to mature into an indictment.
Israel regards Iran as its biggest existential threat, given Tehran’s nuclear weapons programme, and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s repeated pronouncements that the Jewish state should be erased from the map.
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