CAIRO, 1 April 2004 — A Cairo court sentenced an Egyptian lawyer to 15 years in jail yesterday for offering to provide information to the Israeli Embassy and sending the embassy classified information about his military service.
Waleed Lotfy Ahmed Hashim, 29, had telephoned the embassy and sent it a fax offering his services and asking for $2,500 for every piece of information he provided. Investigations began last April and he was formally arrested in October.
The Higher State Security Emergency Court imposed the maximum custodial sentence, as requested by the prosecution, and fined the man 1,000 Egyptian pounds ($162). The formal charge was attempting to spy for a foreign country with intent to damage Egypt’s interests.
Female members of Hashim’s family wailed and denounced the sentence as unjust. The defendant wept but did not speak.
At the time of the arrest, an Israeli Embassy spokesman said the embassy knew nothing about the man and had no connection with him. He was not charged with providing any information.
Hashim’s sister Hanan Hashim, a lawyer who helped defend him, said she would appeal to President Hosni Mubarak for a pardon on the grounds that the charges were so implausible.
“Is it reasonable that a lawyer would confess to the public prosecutors that he was sitting in a cafe to meet an official from the Israeli embassy and that he would receive $2,500 for information?” she said.
There is no appeal procedure in Egypt’s emergency courts but the president, as military commander in chief, can pardon people who are sentenced.
President Mubarak annulled on Monday the life sentence of Ahmed Agiza, a prominent militant, and ordered his retrial before a different judge, the first time the country’s leader has stepped in on the case of an Islamist. Attorney Montasser El-Zayat said yesterday that he has asked the military court for a quick retrial.
Agiza, a 41-year-old doctor, was convicted in absentia in 1999 of plotting and carrying out terrorist activities for the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, which later merged with Al-Qaeda. He was sentenced to 25 years in prison by a military court. Sweden extradited Agiza to Egypt in 2002.
Agiza has denied the charges against him. El-Zayat said Agiza had a falling out with Islamic Jihad founder Ayman Al-Zawahri in 1993 and was no longer a member of the group.
