12 may 2019
Amiram Ben-Uliel, charged for the three murders
The unnamed young man, a minor during the 2015 arson attack that killed the Dawabsheh family, confessed to conspiring to commit a crime motivated by racism; prior confession to Shin Bet agents was disqualified as ruled extracted under duress
A deal signed Sunday between the State Prosecutor and an unnamed minor indicted for conspiring to the 2015 murder off Palestinian family clears the defendant of the murder conspiracy charge.
Riham and Saad Dawabsha were killed along with their 18-month-old son Ali in an arson attack on their West Bank home in July 2015. Their other son, Ahmed, who was then 5, was severely burned in the attack.
The plea bargain convicts the young man of conspiring to commit a crime motivated by racism. However, the indictment was amended to define the crime as arson, not murder, as stated in the original indictment.
The defendant confessed to the crime, and the state requested a prison sentence of five and a half years.
The defendant's' attorney, Adi Keidar of Honenu, a legal aid organization that helps Israelis accused of crimes against Palestinians, said that "the plea bargain and the indictment set a precedent for an Israeli court. It disqualifies the defendant's prior confession and determines it was collected from him using severe violence."
"The court criticized the Shin Bet security service and the State Prosecutor's Office (for their behavior)," said Keidar. "The new indictment is entirely different and has no trace of harming so much as a hair on a person's head. It is entirely unrelated to the murder in the village of Duma (of the Dawabsha family).
"It's time that the defendant tries to recover… We hope that one day, he'll be able to share the horrors he has been through during the Shin Bet investigations," said Keidar.
The State Prosecutor's Office said that the young man "wasn't charged of being involved in the murder scene to begin with, but rather with the planning of the attack," and added that "the defendant's distance from the scene makes it hard to prove an intention to kill, necessary to convict him of conspiring to murder."
The State added that the new indictment determines that the young man was a member of a terror organization.
On January 2016, the State Prosecutor's Office indicted the defendant, a resident of a West Bank settlement who was 17 at the time, for involvement in the murders of the Dawabshe family.
The unnamed defendant was originally indicted of conspiring to murder and for taking part in planning the crime. He was also indicted for six other crimes not related to the Duma murders.
Amiram Ben-Uliel, then 21, from Jerusalem, was directly charged with the murders of the Dawabshe family, and confessed to the crimes.
Ben-Uliel is currently held for 3 counts of murder for hurling a Molotov cocktail into the bedroom of the sleeping Dawabsheh family.
Ben-Uliel also faces two counts of attempted murder, arson and conspiring to commit a hate crime.
Both defendants denied the charges against them during trial, despite their confessions during the investigation, and Ben-Uliel's reenactment of the murder. Both claimed that confessions were extracted using violence.
On June 2018, the court determined that the confessions of the two men, made on a specific day during the investigation process, were extracted by force and would be disqualified. However, other parts of their testimony, collected on all other days of the investigation, remained eligible to be used in trial.
The unnamed young man, a minor during the 2015 arson attack that killed the Dawabsheh family, confessed to conspiring to commit a crime motivated by racism; prior confession to Shin Bet agents was disqualified as ruled extracted under duress
A deal signed Sunday between the State Prosecutor and an unnamed minor indicted for conspiring to the 2015 murder off Palestinian family clears the defendant of the murder conspiracy charge.
Riham and Saad Dawabsha were killed along with their 18-month-old son Ali in an arson attack on their West Bank home in July 2015. Their other son, Ahmed, who was then 5, was severely burned in the attack.
The plea bargain convicts the young man of conspiring to commit a crime motivated by racism. However, the indictment was amended to define the crime as arson, not murder, as stated in the original indictment.
The defendant confessed to the crime, and the state requested a prison sentence of five and a half years.
The defendant's' attorney, Adi Keidar of Honenu, a legal aid organization that helps Israelis accused of crimes against Palestinians, said that "the plea bargain and the indictment set a precedent for an Israeli court. It disqualifies the defendant's prior confession and determines it was collected from him using severe violence."
"The court criticized the Shin Bet security service and the State Prosecutor's Office (for their behavior)," said Keidar. "The new indictment is entirely different and has no trace of harming so much as a hair on a person's head. It is entirely unrelated to the murder in the village of Duma (of the Dawabsha family).
"It's time that the defendant tries to recover… We hope that one day, he'll be able to share the horrors he has been through during the Shin Bet investigations," said Keidar.
The State Prosecutor's Office said that the young man "wasn't charged of being involved in the murder scene to begin with, but rather with the planning of the attack," and added that "the defendant's distance from the scene makes it hard to prove an intention to kill, necessary to convict him of conspiring to murder."
The State added that the new indictment determines that the young man was a member of a terror organization.
On January 2016, the State Prosecutor's Office indicted the defendant, a resident of a West Bank settlement who was 17 at the time, for involvement in the murders of the Dawabshe family.
The unnamed defendant was originally indicted of conspiring to murder and for taking part in planning the crime. He was also indicted for six other crimes not related to the Duma murders.
Amiram Ben-Uliel, then 21, from Jerusalem, was directly charged with the murders of the Dawabshe family, and confessed to the crimes.
Ben-Uliel is currently held for 3 counts of murder for hurling a Molotov cocktail into the bedroom of the sleeping Dawabsheh family.
Ben-Uliel also faces two counts of attempted murder, arson and conspiring to commit a hate crime.
Both defendants denied the charges against them during trial, despite their confessions during the investigation, and Ben-Uliel's reenactment of the murder. Both claimed that confessions were extracted using violence.
On June 2018, the court determined that the confessions of the two men, made on a specific day during the investigation process, were extracted by force and would be disqualified. However, other parts of their testimony, collected on all other days of the investigation, remained eligible to be used in trial.
8 may 2019
An Israeli court released a settler involved in the killing of 48-year-old Palestinian mother of eight Aisha Mohammad al-Rabi, from the town of Bidya, in the north of the West Bank, and placed him under house arrest.
Rabi was killed in front of her husband and 9-year-old daughter when Israeli settlers threw rocks at the car she was in with her husband on a northern West Bank road on October 12, 2018. The husband was moderately injured.
The other four settlers were released in January of this year.
In July of 2015, legislation was passed in the Israeli Knesset allowing sentencing, for up to 20 years, for someone convicted of throwing stones at vehicles, if intent to harm could be proven. However, the law allows the Israeli state to imprison someone for up to 10 years without proof of intent.
Rabi was killed in front of her husband and 9-year-old daughter when Israeli settlers threw rocks at the car she was in with her husband on a northern West Bank road on October 12, 2018. The husband was moderately injured.
The other four settlers were released in January of this year.
In July of 2015, legislation was passed in the Israeli Knesset allowing sentencing, for up to 20 years, for someone convicted of throwing stones at vehicles, if intent to harm could be proven. However, the law allows the Israeli state to imprison someone for up to 10 years without proof of intent.
7 may 2019
Israelis created Darknet forum for drugs, hijacked credit cards
The suspects allegedly set up a site used to purchase weapons, drugs and stolen credit cards through Bitcoin; arrests were made during a joint investigation with FBI and Israel's cyber crime unit
Two Israelis have been arrested on suspicion of setting up a "dark" Internet site that was used to buy weapons, drugs and stolen credit cards, Israeli police said on Tuesday.
The suspects, in their mid-30s, were arrested during a joint investigation with the FBI and Israel's cyber crime unit. Further arrests were made in France, Germany, the Netherlands and Brazil.
"The suspects were arrested after setting up an Internet site that was in the 'dark'," the police said in a statement. "The dark internet site was used for illegal activities and crimes.
"The site had been active for a long period of time and millions of dollars of transactions had been made on the site."
The police said the site guided users to other sites used for illegal activities and crimes which were being investigated.
"The sites worked together covering each other and marketing illegal actions and transactions," police said, adding that the transactions were made using Bitcoin.
The two Israeli suspects are due to appear before a Tel Aviv court. No further details were given.
Three German nationals accused of running one of the world's largest dark websites for selling drugs and other contraband were arrested last week and charged in two countries following a two-year investigation.
A fourth man who allegedly acted as a moderator and promoter for the site was taken into custody in Brazil.
The suspects allegedly set up a site used to purchase weapons, drugs and stolen credit cards through Bitcoin; arrests were made during a joint investigation with FBI and Israel's cyber crime unit
Two Israelis have been arrested on suspicion of setting up a "dark" Internet site that was used to buy weapons, drugs and stolen credit cards, Israeli police said on Tuesday.
The suspects, in their mid-30s, were arrested during a joint investigation with the FBI and Israel's cyber crime unit. Further arrests were made in France, Germany, the Netherlands and Brazil.
"The suspects were arrested after setting up an Internet site that was in the 'dark'," the police said in a statement. "The dark internet site was used for illegal activities and crimes.
"The site had been active for a long period of time and millions of dollars of transactions had been made on the site."
The police said the site guided users to other sites used for illegal activities and crimes which were being investigated.
"The sites worked together covering each other and marketing illegal actions and transactions," police said, adding that the transactions were made using Bitcoin.
The two Israeli suspects are due to appear before a Tel Aviv court. No further details were given.
Three German nationals accused of running one of the world's largest dark websites for selling drugs and other contraband were arrested last week and charged in two countries following a two-year investigation.
A fourth man who allegedly acted as a moderator and promoter for the site was taken into custody in Brazil.
13 mar 2019
Yinon Reuveni
The Higher Presidential Committee for Church Affairs in Palestine condemned the decision of an Israeli court to acquit two Israeli settlers, for torching Jerusalem's Dormition Abbey in February 2016, on the basis of “insufficient evidence,” on Tuesday.
The committee said in a press release that the Israeli court’s decision is a “deviation from justice, even in the courts, when it comes to convicting Jews while arresting young Palestinians without charge or evidence or trials and for long periods of times that can reach dozens of years.”
The committee added that these racist and subversive actions by extremist Israelis under the protection of the courts and the Israeli government will lead to the creation of future Israeli generations molded with ideas and actions hostile toward the Palestinians.
One of the Israeli settlers, Yinon Reuveni, 23, was also accused of arson of the Church of the Multiplication of the Loaves and Fishes at Tabgha, on the shores of the Sea of Galilee, in June 2015.
The Higher Presidential Committee for Church Affairs in Palestine condemned the decision of an Israeli court to acquit two Israeli settlers, for torching Jerusalem's Dormition Abbey in February 2016, on the basis of “insufficient evidence,” on Tuesday.
The committee said in a press release that the Israeli court’s decision is a “deviation from justice, even in the courts, when it comes to convicting Jews while arresting young Palestinians without charge or evidence or trials and for long periods of times that can reach dozens of years.”
The committee added that these racist and subversive actions by extremist Israelis under the protection of the courts and the Israeli government will lead to the creation of future Israeli generations molded with ideas and actions hostile toward the Palestinians.
One of the Israeli settlers, Yinon Reuveni, 23, was also accused of arson of the Church of the Multiplication of the Loaves and Fishes at Tabgha, on the shores of the Sea of Galilee, in June 2015.
10 mar 2019
In a plea deal, 3 Netzach Yehuda soldiers expressed remorse and were sentenced over the beating of 2 Palestinian detainees, suspected accomplices in the killing of 2 soldiers from the religious unit.
A military court sentenced three soldiers from the army’s religious Netzach Yehuda unit to 190 days in prison, three months on probation and a demotion to the rank of Private, for physically abusing two Palestinian detainees.
The ruling came after the defendants pleaded guilty in a plea bargain to the abuse of two detainees, suspected of being accomplices in the terror attack in which two soldiers from their unit were killed in a Givat Assaf attack.
The three expressed remorse for their actions and received relatively light sentences. It was agreed that the defendants could submit a request in two years for their criminal record to be expunged and the prosecution would not oppose. The three will also be allowed to go home over the Passover vacation.
One of the defendants, a staff sergeant and a squad leader, filmed the abusive incident, a fact which added a measure of severity to the indictment as it was intended to further humiliate the victims. But his taking responsibility for his actions allowed the court to lighten his sentence.
Regarding another defendant, a sergeant, the judge stressed his good record as a training commander and the fact that he was friends with the murdered soldier.
The third defendant, a corporal, will not be demoted. “During the incident he was in the midst of a personal crisis and later expressed shame over it,” said the judge. He was commended for cooperating with the court and for taking responsibility for his actions.
According to the testimony of one of the defendants, the violence against the detainees began when the vehicle the force was traveling in passed by Givat Assaf, the place where a shooting attack by a Palestinian terrorist killed Yuval Mor Yosef and Yosef Cohen, two Netzach Yehuda soldiers.
“I saw the sights and everything came rushing back; it was a specific event that does not characterize me, I regret what I did," he testified. “I reached the scene of the attack moments after they were killed and I saw my friend fighting for his life.
“I buried Yuval Mor Yosef. Before the attack, we sat together and suddenly I am grasping the fact that he is no longer alive,” he continued. The intense period following the attack, in pursuit of the suspects and their accomplices, did not allow him to properly deal with his emotions he said.
The unit’s commander Lt. Col. Nitai Okesh testified on behalf of the soldiers and asked the judges for mercy. “Most of our soldiers are volunteers, they give up a lot in order to enlist in the IDF and many lose contact with their (ultra-Orthodox) families… There was quite a lot of pressure on the battalion,” he said.
Commander Okesh added that following the incident, the unit conducted a session with relevant professionals regarding what is allowed and not allowed on the battlefield.
“Today we are in an entirely different place. Despite the storm of emotions, the fighters know what is expected of a soldier in the IDF. This is not an event that characterizes the battalion,” Okesh concluded.
Meanwhile, the trial of the direct commander of the defendants, a lieutenant officer, is ongoing. He is accused of not interfering in the crime and negligence in allowing the incident to take place.
A military court sentenced three soldiers from the army’s religious Netzach Yehuda unit to 190 days in prison, three months on probation and a demotion to the rank of Private, for physically abusing two Palestinian detainees.
The ruling came after the defendants pleaded guilty in a plea bargain to the abuse of two detainees, suspected of being accomplices in the terror attack in which two soldiers from their unit were killed in a Givat Assaf attack.
The three expressed remorse for their actions and received relatively light sentences. It was agreed that the defendants could submit a request in two years for their criminal record to be expunged and the prosecution would not oppose. The three will also be allowed to go home over the Passover vacation.
One of the defendants, a staff sergeant and a squad leader, filmed the abusive incident, a fact which added a measure of severity to the indictment as it was intended to further humiliate the victims. But his taking responsibility for his actions allowed the court to lighten his sentence.
Regarding another defendant, a sergeant, the judge stressed his good record as a training commander and the fact that he was friends with the murdered soldier.
The third defendant, a corporal, will not be demoted. “During the incident he was in the midst of a personal crisis and later expressed shame over it,” said the judge. He was commended for cooperating with the court and for taking responsibility for his actions.
According to the testimony of one of the defendants, the violence against the detainees began when the vehicle the force was traveling in passed by Givat Assaf, the place where a shooting attack by a Palestinian terrorist killed Yuval Mor Yosef and Yosef Cohen, two Netzach Yehuda soldiers.
“I saw the sights and everything came rushing back; it was a specific event that does not characterize me, I regret what I did," he testified. “I reached the scene of the attack moments after they were killed and I saw my friend fighting for his life.
“I buried Yuval Mor Yosef. Before the attack, we sat together and suddenly I am grasping the fact that he is no longer alive,” he continued. The intense period following the attack, in pursuit of the suspects and their accomplices, did not allow him to properly deal with his emotions he said.
The unit’s commander Lt. Col. Nitai Okesh testified on behalf of the soldiers and asked the judges for mercy. “Most of our soldiers are volunteers, they give up a lot in order to enlist in the IDF and many lose contact with their (ultra-Orthodox) families… There was quite a lot of pressure on the battalion,” he said.
Commander Okesh added that following the incident, the unit conducted a session with relevant professionals regarding what is allowed and not allowed on the battlefield.
“Today we are in an entirely different place. Despite the storm of emotions, the fighters know what is expected of a soldier in the IDF. This is not an event that characterizes the battalion,” Okesh concluded.
Meanwhile, the trial of the direct commander of the defendants, a lieutenant officer, is ongoing. He is accused of not interfering in the crime and negligence in allowing the incident to take place.
7 mar 2019
All three awating approval of plea deal for attack on father and son suspected of collaborating with gunmen who killed two of their colleagues in December drive-by shooting
The military court in Jaffa on Thursday convicted three soldiers from the ultra-Orthodox Netzah Yehuda Battalion of aggravated assault adn aggravated battery for a brutal attack on two Palestinian detainees, a 50-year-old man and his 15-year-old son, in January.
The soldiers were convicted of assaulting of the two during their arrest for suspected collaboration with the Palestinian militants behind a deadly shooting attack that killed two of their battalion comrades in the West Bank in December.
The three have reached a plea bargain with prosecutors, although it has yet to be approved. The deal will see the three sentenced to 190 days in jail, demoted to the rank of private and given probation. The final verdict will be handed down on Sunday.
Two more soldiers have also been charged in the affair, while the platoon commander is accused of standing by and not preventing the violence. He did not sign a plea bargain and will now face a full trial. The other two soldiers are reportedly negotiating their own plea deals at the moment.
The five soldiers were indicted in January for severely beating the two Palestinian detainees, leaving them seriously hurt with fractures to their ribs and noses, during the manhunt for As'am Barghouti, who shot dead two soldiers from the Netzah Yehuda Battalion at the Giv'at Asaf outpost in the West Bank in December.
The two Palestinians were arrested on suspicion of helpling Barghouti and his brother—who were also involved in a terror attack near Ofra Junction that left a newborn baby dead and seven people wounded—evade capture.
The IDF Spokesperson’s Unit said the five soldiers were charged with aggravated abuse and aggravated battery. The soldiers allegedly cursed, slapped, punched and hit the suspects with fists and blunt objects, targeting their heads as well as other body parts, while the two Palestinians were tied up and blindfolded. The soldiers also allegedly kicked the suspects in the groin and pulled on their hair.
As the suspects were being transported by the Netzah Yehuda troops, the vehicle passed the Giv'at Asaf Junction, where the two of the soldiers’ comrades—Sergeant Yosef Cohen and Staff Sergeant Yovel Moryosef—had been gunned down. This prompted the soldiers who were sitting in the back of the car with the detainees to start abusing them, while the platoon commander observed but did not interfere.
The indictment stated that footage of the incident, filmed by one of the soldiers, showed the troops cheering as the suspects were being beaten.
"At one point, the defendants removed the blindfold from one of the detainees, so he would see his friend being beaten, while the other soldiers were cheering,” the indictment said. “As a result, the two suspects needed urgent medical treatment and were later hospitalized at the Shaare Zedek Medical Center in Jerusalem."
Once at the hospital, doctors found the two Palestinians had suffered severe rib and nose fractures.
The military court in Jaffa on Thursday convicted three soldiers from the ultra-Orthodox Netzah Yehuda Battalion of aggravated assault adn aggravated battery for a brutal attack on two Palestinian detainees, a 50-year-old man and his 15-year-old son, in January.
The soldiers were convicted of assaulting of the two during their arrest for suspected collaboration with the Palestinian militants behind a deadly shooting attack that killed two of their battalion comrades in the West Bank in December.
The three have reached a plea bargain with prosecutors, although it has yet to be approved. The deal will see the three sentenced to 190 days in jail, demoted to the rank of private and given probation. The final verdict will be handed down on Sunday.
Two more soldiers have also been charged in the affair, while the platoon commander is accused of standing by and not preventing the violence. He did not sign a plea bargain and will now face a full trial. The other two soldiers are reportedly negotiating their own plea deals at the moment.
The five soldiers were indicted in January for severely beating the two Palestinian detainees, leaving them seriously hurt with fractures to their ribs and noses, during the manhunt for As'am Barghouti, who shot dead two soldiers from the Netzah Yehuda Battalion at the Giv'at Asaf outpost in the West Bank in December.
The two Palestinians were arrested on suspicion of helpling Barghouti and his brother—who were also involved in a terror attack near Ofra Junction that left a newborn baby dead and seven people wounded—evade capture.
The IDF Spokesperson’s Unit said the five soldiers were charged with aggravated abuse and aggravated battery. The soldiers allegedly cursed, slapped, punched and hit the suspects with fists and blunt objects, targeting their heads as well as other body parts, while the two Palestinians were tied up and blindfolded. The soldiers also allegedly kicked the suspects in the groin and pulled on their hair.
As the suspects were being transported by the Netzah Yehuda troops, the vehicle passed the Giv'at Asaf Junction, where the two of the soldiers’ comrades—Sergeant Yosef Cohen and Staff Sergeant Yovel Moryosef—had been gunned down. This prompted the soldiers who were sitting in the back of the car with the detainees to start abusing them, while the platoon commander observed but did not interfere.
The indictment stated that footage of the incident, filmed by one of the soldiers, showed the troops cheering as the suspects were being beaten.
"At one point, the defendants removed the blindfold from one of the detainees, so he would see his friend being beaten, while the other soldiers were cheering,” the indictment said. “As a result, the two suspects needed urgent medical treatment and were later hospitalized at the Shaare Zedek Medical Center in Jerusalem."
Once at the hospital, doctors found the two Palestinians had suffered severe rib and nose fractures.
27 feb 2019
A former Israeli minister has been sentenced to 11 years in prison on Tuesday for spying for regional rival Iran, after admitting to the charges last month.
Gonen Segev was convicted in January when the Israeli justice ministry said he reached a plea deal after confessing to severe espionage and passing information to an enemy country with the purpose of harming Israel.
Israeli prosecutor Geula Cohen confirmed to journalists outside the Jerusalem court that the judge had accepted the plea bargain and issued the sentence.
Segev, energy minister from 1995 to 1996, was indicted in June. The Shin Bet internal security service said at the time that he was recruited by Iranian intelligence while living in Nigeria.
Investigators found that Segev made contact with officials at the Iranian embassy in Nigeria in 2012 and that he visited Iran twice for meetings with his handlers, the Shin Bet said.
Segev, who was extradited from Equatorial Guinea and arrested in May, was charged with providing Iran information about "energy market and security sites in Israel".
The ministry said there was a gag order on further details.
Segev, a physician, was jailed in 2004 for attempting to smuggle "Ecstasy" pills into Israel and left the country in 2007 after his release from prison.
Segev served in the Labor government of former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin after defecting from the far right to cast the decisive vote in favor of the Oslo II peace agreement with the Palestinians.
Ex-Israeli minister gets 11 years in prison for spying for Iran
Gonen Segev is sentenced by Jerusalem District Court under a plea deal that includes confessing to espionage; as part of the agreement, the judge dropped a charge defined as treason from the indictment.
A former Israeli minister was sentenced to eleven years in prison by the Jerusalem District Court on Tuesday after pleading guilty to spying for Iran, the prosecutor said.
Gonen Segev, the former energy and infrastructure minister, was accused of aiding Iran while he was living in Nigeria between 2012 and June 2018. He provided sensitive information such as locations of Israeli military sites and names of top national security officials.
63-year-old Segev signed a plea bargain deal with the state in the beginning of January 2019 and confessed to espionage, aiding an enemy in war time, as well as providing information to the enemy.
As part of the plea agreement, the charge of aiding an enemy in the war time—an offense defined as treason—was removed from the indictment by Judge Rafi Carmel.
In reaching the plea agreement, Segev’s defense team claimed the 11 year sentence is a fitting punishment for someone his age. In addition, similar punishments were imposed on those convicted of similar spying offenses. For instance, Ameer Makhoul—Palestinian who in 2010 was charged with spying for Hezbollah—was sentenced to 9 years in prison also as part of a plea deal.
The State Attorney's Office emphasized that one of the main reasons for reaching the plea agreement is the fact that while managing security cases there is a possible risk of sensitive intelligence information being leaked to a third party.
"Segev’s exposure, the investigation, the prosecution and finally today’s sentencing all represent a significant achievement for the Shin Bet, the Israel Police and the State Prosecutor's Office. Despite living in Africa, he was convicted and sentenced in Israel on charges of spying for Iran,” said one of the attorneys from the Jerusalem District Prosecutor's Office.
Segev's attorney Moshe Mazor called the prison sentence “proportionate to the circumstances of the affair." “The impression of the general public that the sentence is lenient stems from the fact that people are not exposed to the full extent of the case … He expressed sincere remorse for his actions," he said.
The former minister, who has been living in Nigeria in recent years where he worked as a doctor, tried to enter Equatorial Guinea in May 2018, where he was refused entry because of his criminal past and consequently transferred to Israel.
He was arrested and interrogated by the Shin Bet and the Israel Police after intelligence gathered on him raised the suspicion he was in contact with Iranian intelligence and aiding them in their activities against Israel.
The investigation found that Segev was recruited and was operated as an agent of the Iranian intelligence. He was first contacted by Iranian embassy officials in Nigeria in 2012, and at a later stage traveled to Iran twice for meetings with his handlers—while being fully aware they belonged to Iranian intelligence.
Segev did not deny the allegations leveled against him during his investigation, but claimed that he attempted to help Israel by “obtaining information.”
Gonen Segev was convicted in January when the Israeli justice ministry said he reached a plea deal after confessing to severe espionage and passing information to an enemy country with the purpose of harming Israel.
Israeli prosecutor Geula Cohen confirmed to journalists outside the Jerusalem court that the judge had accepted the plea bargain and issued the sentence.
Segev, energy minister from 1995 to 1996, was indicted in June. The Shin Bet internal security service said at the time that he was recruited by Iranian intelligence while living in Nigeria.
Investigators found that Segev made contact with officials at the Iranian embassy in Nigeria in 2012 and that he visited Iran twice for meetings with his handlers, the Shin Bet said.
Segev, who was extradited from Equatorial Guinea and arrested in May, was charged with providing Iran information about "energy market and security sites in Israel".
The ministry said there was a gag order on further details.
Segev, a physician, was jailed in 2004 for attempting to smuggle "Ecstasy" pills into Israel and left the country in 2007 after his release from prison.
Segev served in the Labor government of former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin after defecting from the far right to cast the decisive vote in favor of the Oslo II peace agreement with the Palestinians.
Ex-Israeli minister gets 11 years in prison for spying for Iran
Gonen Segev is sentenced by Jerusalem District Court under a plea deal that includes confessing to espionage; as part of the agreement, the judge dropped a charge defined as treason from the indictment.
A former Israeli minister was sentenced to eleven years in prison by the Jerusalem District Court on Tuesday after pleading guilty to spying for Iran, the prosecutor said.
Gonen Segev, the former energy and infrastructure minister, was accused of aiding Iran while he was living in Nigeria between 2012 and June 2018. He provided sensitive information such as locations of Israeli military sites and names of top national security officials.
63-year-old Segev signed a plea bargain deal with the state in the beginning of January 2019 and confessed to espionage, aiding an enemy in war time, as well as providing information to the enemy.
As part of the plea agreement, the charge of aiding an enemy in the war time—an offense defined as treason—was removed from the indictment by Judge Rafi Carmel.
In reaching the plea agreement, Segev’s defense team claimed the 11 year sentence is a fitting punishment for someone his age. In addition, similar punishments were imposed on those convicted of similar spying offenses. For instance, Ameer Makhoul—Palestinian who in 2010 was charged with spying for Hezbollah—was sentenced to 9 years in prison also as part of a plea deal.
The State Attorney's Office emphasized that one of the main reasons for reaching the plea agreement is the fact that while managing security cases there is a possible risk of sensitive intelligence information being leaked to a third party.
"Segev’s exposure, the investigation, the prosecution and finally today’s sentencing all represent a significant achievement for the Shin Bet, the Israel Police and the State Prosecutor's Office. Despite living in Africa, he was convicted and sentenced in Israel on charges of spying for Iran,” said one of the attorneys from the Jerusalem District Prosecutor's Office.
Segev's attorney Moshe Mazor called the prison sentence “proportionate to the circumstances of the affair." “The impression of the general public that the sentence is lenient stems from the fact that people are not exposed to the full extent of the case … He expressed sincere remorse for his actions," he said.
The former minister, who has been living in Nigeria in recent years where he worked as a doctor, tried to enter Equatorial Guinea in May 2018, where he was refused entry because of his criminal past and consequently transferred to Israel.
He was arrested and interrogated by the Shin Bet and the Israel Police after intelligence gathered on him raised the suspicion he was in contact with Iranian intelligence and aiding them in their activities against Israel.
The investigation found that Segev was recruited and was operated as an agent of the Iranian intelligence. He was first contacted by Iranian embassy officials in Nigeria in 2012, and at a later stage traveled to Iran twice for meetings with his handlers—while being fully aware they belonged to Iranian intelligence.
Segev did not deny the allegations leveled against him during his investigation, but claimed that he attempted to help Israel by “obtaining information.”
