Intrigue: What’s Behind the Israelis Exposing Iranian Spy Ali Mansouri?
Belgian-Iranian citizen arrested September 11 on suspicion of espionage; gag order lifted as PM attempts to temper West’s turn toward Tehran.
Senior government officials ordered law enforcement to lift a gag order on the arrest of an Iranian with Belgian citizenship accused of spying for Tehran’s Revolutionary Guards, a police official said Monday, indicating that the timing of the move, as Israel is fighting an Iranian charm offensive, was political in nature.
The detention of Ali Mansouri, arrested in Israel by the Shin Bet security service earlier this month on suspicion of spying on American and Israeli security interests in Israel, was extended for a further eight days in a Monday remand hearing in the Petah Tikva Magistrate’s Court.
During the court proceedings, a police representative said that the gag order on the case was suddenly lifted Sunday by high-level government officials, indicating that the timing, coinciding with a trip to the US by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during which he will attempt to combat a recent turn toward Tehran by the West, was not accidental.
As the gag order on the arrest was lifted Sunday morning, Netanyahu was making his way to New York to deliver a speech at the UN widely expected to attempt to refocus world attention on Iran’s nuclear program. A member of the prime minister’s delegation to New York said Sunday that the arrest was proof that Iranian attempts at detente with the West had not changed its actions on the ground.
“At a time when Iran is trying to get closer to the US, it sent an agent to try to gather intelligence in order to carry out a terror attack against the American Embassy in Israel,” the official said. “This is just one further example of Iran’s policy of doublespeak and further proof that Iran’s words do not match its actions.”
Dr. Julian Richards, a Co-Director of the Centre for Security and Intelligence Studies at the University of Buckingham, provides his thoughts to Voice of Russia on this intriguing spy expose:
As to intelligence information, what do you think Ali Mansouri was exactly gathering?
That is a very good question. It sounds like it is a long operation. If what we were being told is true, then he has been preparing this operation for quite a long time. What information would he be gathering? Maybe he was interested in Israeli attitudes towards the Iranian situation, possibly military information about their intentions, possibly some political information about whether and when Israel was prepared to move against the Iranian nuclear program.
Couldn’t this information be gathered on the Internet? Why did he actually go there?
He could get the public one, but It might be presumed that he might be trying to recruit agents on the ground who may have had more direct access to people of interest that might have been able to get a sort of insight track of what was being planned. One can only presume, we don’t know the full details.
Israel’s secret service released photographs that it said were taken from Ali Mansouri’s camera. The photographs allegedly included exterior shots of the US Embassy in Tel Aviv. Do you think it is strange that that the photos of the US embassy is believed to be intelligence information?
You would think so, yes. It explains in a way, one would presume that if he was gathering intelligence at all, if he was gathering intelligence on Israelis and what they were doing, if he was gathering political and military intelligence, taking pictures of the US Embassy, that seems rather more potential terrorist preparation. There is no suggestion that he was involved in that. So, it is rather curious I must admit.
It seems that Israel and America are allies, although there is some inner-fighting in-between the two. But if Benjamin Netanyahu is expected to give a speech at the UN General Assembly, he is expected to argue that Iran cannot be trusted, and that stiff economic actions should remain in place, doesn’t it seem curious of the timing of this release?
I think questions to do have to be asked about the timing of this and of course it is not unusual. I mean intelligence on security information often is leaked out at politically very important times. So, in the light of president Obama’s overtures and telephone conversations with the Iranian president, the timing does seem uncanny that this is coming out at this time and it does seem that America and Iran might be having talks with each other. I think we can reasonably be suspicious about the timing of this information coming out.
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