Last update - 00:00 26/03/2007
Egyptian court adjourns trial of man charged with spying for Israel
By Associated Press
A prosecutor began wrapping up an espionage case Monday against an Egyptian-Canadian man accused of spying for Israel.
Mohammed el-Attar, 30, has been on trial at the State Security Emergency Court, and pleaded not guilty. Three Israelis charged alongside el-Attar are being tried in absentia. If convicted, el-Attar and his co-defendants face a maximum life sentence, with hard labor.
A verdict could come as early as Wednesday, when the court reconvenes. Verdicts by Egyptian state security courts are final and can only be overturned by a presidential pardon.
El-Attar, a former student at the Islamic Al-Azhar university in Cairo, was arrested on Jan. 1 as he returned from abroad to visit his family in Egypt.
During the hearing, prosecutor Hani Hamoodah accused el-Attar of betraying his religion and country.
El-Attar has sold his home and nation at a low price, the official MENA news agency quoted Hamoodah as saying.
According to prosecutors, el-Attar confessed to spying for Israel and gave a detailed account of his role in collecting information about Egyptians and Arabs living in Turkey and Canada in return for money. He also received instructions from the three Israelis, said to be intelligence officers, to recruit Christian Egyptian immigrants in Canada using money and sex.
The alleged confession, published earlier this month in independent and government newspapers here, claimed el-Attar fled Egypt in 2001 and sought asylum with the UN refugee agency offices in Turkey after he was sentenced to three years in prison for bank fraud.
The confession also alleged that el-Attar converted to Christianity in Istanbul and was allegedly sent to Canada, where he delivered more reports about Christian Egyptians.
Hamoodah repeated many of the allegations during Monday's hearing, according to MENA.
El-Attar's case comes 10 years after a high-profile spy case here of Azzam Azzam, an Israeli Arab who was sentenced in 1997 to 15 years in jail for industrial espionage.
Azzam spent eight years in jail, then in Dec. 2004 was released in a swap for six Egyptian students arrested in Israel that same year for illegally crossing the border and planning to kidnap soldiers.