An Australian citizen has faced an Israeli court charged with spying for Hamas, the Islamist group which rules the Gaza Strip.
Eyad Abuarga was arrested along with his wife when he arrived at Tel Aviv airport in March, and has been in custody ever since.
Israeli intelligence officials allege the electronics engineer was recruited by Hamas while living in Saudi Arabia, and received weapons training in Syria before making a trip to Israel.
They accuse him of trying to enter Israel on his Australian passport in order to conduct spy operations.
Hamas is banned in Israel.
In court, the 46-year-old said he was an innocent Australian tourist and denied ever having trained in Syria.
A detailed indictment alleges he had links to the Palestinian struggle since the 1980s, but that from around 2007, he began attending a number of secretive meetings with Hamas members.
The indictment also claims he was asked to help with encoding, that he supplied photographic equipment which could find and guide missiles, and that he trained with Hamas in Syria.
“The accused was taken to a room with prayer rugs where he met four others,” the indictment says.
“After a while they went out and began to train, shooting a pistol and a rifle at different targets. After they finished he was driven back to Damascus. He was blindfolded some of the way.”
The indictment is so detailed as to describe the colours of the car he travelled in and blindfold he was given.
His lawyer, Leah Tzemel, told AM all the evidence comes from interviews with her client which has not been corroborated with outside sources.
Abuarga is a Palestinian refugee who grew up on the Arabian Gulf but later moved to Australia and became an Australian citizen.
As he waited for the hearing to begin, Abuarga told the media at the court near Tel Aviv he had never trained in Syria.
“I’d like to say loud and clear that I’m not a member of Hamas, never was and never will, or any other group,” he said.
Abuarga had been living in Saudi Arabia, until he was arrested on arrival at Ben Gurion Airport earlier this year.
He says he was visiting Israel for a holiday.
“I am an Australian tourist, who came to this country with my wife to celebrate our 25th anniversary of our marriage, and ended up in jail,” he said.
Abuarga’s wife and children have now returned to Australia.
He told the media he had been treated well while in jail.
But his lawyer says if an acceptable plea bargain is not reached, she will release more information about the facts of his interrogation.
The matter has been adjourned for a fortnight.
Meanwhile, the Federal Government says consular officials have been providing extensive help to Abuarga.
A spokeswoman for the Department of Foreign Affairs says officials have visited the man in prison seven times and have also provided extensive help to his family.
Cairo, Egypt (CNN) — An Egyptian court on Thursday sentenced three men — an Egyptian and two Israeli nationals — to 25 years in prison for spying for Israel.
Tarek Abdel-Razek Hussain Hassan, 37, the Egyptian owner of an import-export firm, was arrested in August. The Supreme State Security Court’s criminal department tried the two Israelis in absentia.
Israeli Ambassador Yitzhak Levanon said he had no comment on the case.
Officials charged the three with spying for Israel and harming Egypt’s national interests after Hassan tried to recruit Egyptians working in the telecommunications industry to spy for Israel.
Hassan received $37,000 to recruit Egyptians who could spy in Egypt, Syria and Lebanon for the Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency.
According to the charges, the spy ring began in May 2008, when Hassan met abroad with the two Israelis.
Hassan is the first person convicted of spying for Israel since Egypt’s January 25 revolution, which resulted in the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak.
“This case sends two messages, one to Egyptians and another to Israel,” said Abdel Aleem Mohamed, senior researcher of Israel Studies at the Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies in Cairo. “To Egyptians, the way they deal with Israel will be different and that national security issues will be dealt with severely. To Israel, they are sending a message that the system has changed from the days of Mubarak.”
The case closes as another begins. Ilan Grapel, a 27-year-old dual U.S.-Israeli citizen was arrested June 12 on suspicion of spying. Israel denies he is a spy.
Mohamed predicted none of the cases would dramatically affect relations between the countries.
“This situation won’t affect Egypt-Israel ties because Egypt is free to punish whoever compromises the country’s security,” Mohamed said. “Israel would do the same to an Egyptian spy. Spying is what countries do.”
WASHINGTON – Federal regulators on Thursday expanded their civil insider-trading charges against a chemist with the Food and Drug Administration accused of using confidential FDA information on pending drug approvals to profit from trades of drug companies’ stock.
Cheng Yi Liang is facing both civil and criminal charges of running an insider trading scheme starting in November 2007. He and his son were arrested in March on charges including securities fraud and wire fraud.
The Securities and Exchange Commission said Thursday it filed a revised civil lawsuit against Liang, alleging he illegally traded in advance of a public announcement on FDA approval of XenoPort Inc.’s Horizant. That was the 28th announcement the SEC says Liang traded ahead of, in addition to the 27 cited in the agency’s suit filed in federal court in Greenbelt, Md., on March 29.
The agency’s revised suit “shows Liang had one more illegal trade in the pipeline when we charged him,” SEC spokesman John Nester said in a statement. “That trade was not expected to pay off until after we put a stop to his fraudulent scheme.”
Horizant was developed to treat restless leg syndrome. Liang made more than $126,000 in profits on XenoPort’s stock, the SEC said. He is accused of making a total $3.6 million in the trading scheme.
Liang’s lawyer, Andrew Carter, didn’t immediately return a telephone call seeking comment Thursday.
The SEC is seeking unspecified restitution and fines against Liang.
Liang looked up the status of the FDA’s review of Horizant on a confidential database at least 52 times between Jan. 6 and March 24, the SEC said. He bought 43,000 shares of XenoPort in accounts in other people’s names in February and March.
The announcement of the approval of Horizant came on April 6, about a week after Liang was charged by the SEC and federal prosecutors. It boosted the price of XenoPort stock by 56 percent, according to the SEC.
The new SEC complaint adds an eighth brokerage account to those it says Liang used to avoid getting caught. That one was in the name of his father, the agency said.
The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday that the government has expanded its investigation of insider trading at the FDA to cover other government employees besides Liang. The Journal cited unidentified people familiar with the matter.
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A former KPMG senior manager caught insider trading has been ordered to undertake community service for two years.
In the NSW Supreme Court on Friday, Justice Peter Hall sentenced Andrew Dalzell to two years’ imprisonment, to be served by way of ‘an intensive correction order’.
Under the order, the 49-year-old unemployed Randwick man is required to undertake a minimum of 32 hours of community service a month.
He had pleaded guilty to one charge of insider trading, relating to his purchase of 40,000 shares in the printing company Promentum Limited in November 2006.
At the time, the KPMG senior manager was part of a team advising Promentum about a proposal to acquire another printing company, MacMillan Group.
Dalzell paid $52,369 for the shares, but two weeks later when the offence was detected, he resigned from his job and sold the shares at a loss of about $3000.
The judge said the insider trading was at the lower end of seriousness for such offences and did not involve a ‘gross abuse’ of highly confidential information.
Dalzell told the judge that a confidential report to which he had access played only a part in his decision to buy the shares.
Over the years, he had followed printing companies and the report was only a ‘stage-one pitch document’, he said.
In saying he had not recognised he was acting in a criminal way, Dalzell noted he bought the shares in his own ‘unusual’ name and used his usual broker.
But Justice Hall concluded he must have known what he did was ‘wrong and an abuse of trust’, although he may not have been mindful of the serious criminality of his acts.
He said Dalzell’s purchase had the potential to make him substantial profits.
The judge also referred to the need for general deterrence in sentencing, as insider trading had the capacity to undermine the integrity of the market and diminish public confidence.
