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Egypt lawyer jailed for spying
31/03/2004 20:26 - (SA)
Cairo - An Egyptian lawyer was sentenced here on Wednesday to 15-years in prison for spying for Israel.
Walid Ahmed Lotfi Hashem, 29, burst into tears when the high state security court pronounced the maximum sentence as recommended by prosecutors, according to a reporter in court.
"I rely on God, my only recourse," Hashem said as his family expressed their anger over the verdict.
The verdict cannot be appealed under the emergency laws which set up the court. However, President Hosni Mubarak, the military governor, must approve the verdict.
The judge said it had been determined that Hashem, who had been accused of spying for Israel in return for money, "had given information about the army unit in which he carried out his military service."
Hashem had pleaded not guilty when the trial opened in January.
The defendant, "who studied Egyptian law, should have understood that he must keep his country's secrets," the presiding judge added.
Among the main items of evidence against him were two faxes that he sent the ambassador and embassy of Israel proposing his services, the judge said.
Defence lawyer Rauf Qotb said that he "did not expect such a severe sentence."
He added he was "going to submit a request to the military governor (Mubarak) to cancel or lighten the sentence," claiming there had been shortcomings in the trial.
Hashem was arrested on October 23 in a cafe by the Pyramids, in southern Cairo, where the prosecutor said he had arranged to meet with an official from the Israeli embassy.
Several espionage cases have in the past few years been tried in courts in Egypt, which signed a peace treaty with Israel in 1979.
The best known case is that of Azzam Azzam, an Israeli Arab who has been serving a 15-year term since August 1997 in Tora prison for spying for Israel.
Egypt has frequently rejected Israeli requests for his release.
- AFP
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