Jailan Halawi examines the case of Mohamed Essam El-Attar, sentenced this week to 15 years in jail after being found guilty of spying for Israel A state security court in the new Cairo suburb of Tagammu El-Khamis sentenced Egyptian-Canadian Mohamed Essam El-Attar to 15 years in prison on Saturday after he was found guilty of spying. Three others -- Daniel Levi, Kemal Kosba and Tuncay Bubay, alleged to be officers in the Israeli Intelligence Agency Mossad -- were tried in absentia and received similar sentences. El-Attar, whose trial started on 24 February, was also fined LE10,000. Announcing the ruling, judge Sayed El-Gohary said Attar had been "seduced by Satan". Thirty-one-year-old El-Attar had entered the courtroom with confidence. Surrounded by more than a dozen policemen, he smiled and made victory signs to the scrum of journalists and photographers. Immediately after the sentencing, Attar's guards whisked him out of the court before he could speak with anyone from the media. Attar had pleaded not guilty throughout the trial and insisted his earlier confessions had been extracted under pressure. Ibrahim El-Basyouni, Attar's lawyer, described the ruling as "harsh", arguing that the media brouhaha surrounding his client had influenced the court's decision. "There was no proof and based on the facts presented in the case, Mohamed should have been acquitted," he said. Sentences passed by state security courts cannot be appealed under Emergency Laws, in force since 1981. Only President Mubarak can revoke the court's decision. The Canadian Embassy in Cairo said officials will review the decision and continue to provide Attar with consular assistance while in prison. Meanwhile, Canada's Foreign Minister Peter MacKay said on Saturday that the Canadian government remains "concerned about a number of aspects in this case". "Allegations of mistreatment and torture made by Mr Attar during his trial are of particular concern," MacKay said, adding that the issue has been raised repeatedly with Egyptian authorities. "We call upon Egypt to launch a prompt and impartial investigation into Mr Attar's claims and to abide by the United Nations Convention against Torture, to which it became party in 1986." Under international human rights law, evidence obtained under torture cannot be used as the basis for a conviction. Attar repeatedly told the court that his confessions were extracted under pressure, charges denied by the State Security Prosecutor Hani Homouda. Prosecutors say Attar confessed to spying for Israel and provided detailed accounts of his role in collecting information about Egyptians and Arabs living in Turkey and Canada. Attar allegedly received instructions from his three Israeli accomplices to recruit Christian Egyptian immigrants in Canada by using "money and sex". Prosecutors further allege Mossad agents helped Attar procure a Canadian residency permit under a fake name and found him work in a bank. Attar, a former Al-Azhar student, fled Egypt in 2001 and sought asylum with the UN refugee agency offices in Turkey after being sentenced to three years in prison for failing to pay an IOU. Arrested on his arrival at Cairo International Airport in January at the beginning of a family visit, Attar was accused of spying in both Turkey and Canada and of using his job in a Canadian bank to obtain information on expatriate Arab accounts. Earlier this week, in a separate case, Egyptian nuclear engineer Mohamed Sayed Saber Ali, 35, was charged with providing Israel with confidential reports on Egypt's nuclear programme. Ali, who works at Egypt's Nuclear Energy Agency, is expected to stand trail before a state security court on charges of selling classified information. Two foreign nationals, Brian Peter from Ireland and Shiro Izo from Japan, are also wanted in connection with the case. Their current whereabouts are unknown. The suspect was arrested on 18 February at Cairo International Airport following his return from Hong Kong, the city in which he is alleged to have regularly met his contacts. News of his detention was withheld until the investigation was completed. According to prosecutors, Ali's contacts were interested in the Inshas reactor where he worked. They wanted to know how many hours it operated, the type of experiments conducted, whether any technical problems had been encountered and how frequently the International Atomic Energy Agency inspected the reactor. Egypt said last year that it was examining the possibility of restarting the nuclear programme it abandoned two decades ago as it searches for alternatives to fossil fuel. In 1996 Egypt detained Azzam Azzam, a textile worker and a member of Israel's minority Druze community, sentencing him to 15 years in jail on charges of industrial espionage. In 2004 Azzam, who always maintained his innocence, was exchanged for six Egyptian students arrested by Israel on suspicion of planning to abduct Israeli soldiers. Azzam's Egyptian accomplice remains in custody, completing a 25-year sentence. In 2002 a state security court sentenced Egyptian engineer Sherif El-Filali to 15 years with hard labour for spying for Israel. While not all espionage-related cases are revealed to the press, over the last 20 years more than a dozen cases have been discovered.
