Israeli authorities have charged a Swedish citizen with working as an
intelligence officer for the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah. It is
believed that Hassan Khalil Hizran, 55, was born to Palestinian refugees
in Lebanon, from where he emigrated to Sweden many years ago. But he
was arrested
in Tel Aviv on July 21 while disembarking a flight at Israel’s Ben
Gurion International Airport and was taken into custody by the Shin Bet,
Israel’s counterterrorism and counterintelligence agency. A spokesman
for the agency said Hizran had confessed during interrogation to being
an intelligence operative for Hezbollah, a primarily Shiite organization
that controls much of Lebanon’s territory. He is said to have told his
interrogators that he was recruited by the group in the summer of 2009
while visiting Lebanon from Sweden with his wife and children.
Shin Bet said that Hizran had been asked by his Hezbollah handlers to
gather intelligence relating to Israeli military installations and that
he visited Israel several times in order to fulfil his missions. He
would then return to Lebanon after visiting a third country in order to
provide his Hezbollah handlers with the information he had collected
while in Israel. Sources in Tel Aviv said Hizran visited Lebanon at
least twice since his 2009 recruitment, specifically in 2011 and 2013.
He returned to Sweden with monetary sums given to him by Hezbollah as
payment for his services, which amounted to several thousand dollars,
according to Shin Bet. The Israeli security agency said the Swede was
helping Hezbollah identify military targets for a future war, which it
interpreted as “proof that Hezbollah is preparing for the net war with
Israel by compiling a target bank”.
According to the Israelis, Hizran had also been tasked by Hezbollah with
recruiting Arabs with ties to Israeli Jews, but that he was either
unable or unwilling to do so. However, on Sunday he was charged with
three criminal counts including contacting an agent of a foreign
government and communicating sensitive information. The Swedish man’s
Israeli lawyer, Leah Tsemel, denied that her client was guilty of
espionage and claimed that he had “refused repeated requests to inflict
harm on the national security of Israel”. The Swedish and Lebanese
governments have not commented on Hizran’s arrest.
http://intelnews.org/2015/08/10/01-1752/
No comments:
Post a Comment