13 - 19 September 2001
Issue No.551
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Al-Ahram Weekly Online 13 - 19 September 2001 Issue No.551 |
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Re-trial for alleged spy
Sherif El-Filali, an Egyptian accused of spying for Israel but acquitted three months ago, will now have to face a re-trial. Khaled Dawoud reports
A legal office attached to the presidency of the republic has refused to ratify a State Security Court's ruling that released Sherif El-Filali, a 34-year-old engineer, from detention on charges of spying for Israel, despite finding him guilty. The court had ordered his release in mid-June on the grounds that he had tipped police about his own activities. El-Filali has been re-arrested, and his re-trial will open on 19 September. Under the Emergency Law, in force since 1981, the rulings of state security courts must be ratified by the president of the republic.
El-Filali was first arrested a year ago, shortly after his return from Spain where he worked as a businessman. He went voluntarily to the National Security Department, which deals with intelligence, and reported that he had suspicions that Israel's intelligence arm, the Mossad, was trying to recruit him. After nearly two weeks of daily visits by El-Filali to the intelligence building in Hadayeq Al- Qobba, after which he was allowed to return home, police raided the flat where he lived with his parents in Heliopolis and arrested him. Intelligence officials also confiscated his personal computer and a number of discs which reportedly contained "sensitive military information."
Yet it took two months for officials to announce El-Filali's arrest and the charges brought against him and a Russian accomplice, Gregory Schvitz. The latter was tried in absentia and sentenced to life imprisonment. Delaying the announcement of the case against El-Filali and the Russian suspect until a few weeks after the eruption of the Palestinian uprising led some observers to speculate that this was a message sent from Egypt to Israel expressing dissatisfaction with aggression against the Palestinian people.
After nearly six months of trial hearings, the State Security Court acquitted El-Filali on 13 June. The court said that although it was certain that he was involved in spying activities for Israel, it could not ignore the fact that he was the one who reported his connections to Egyptian intelligence. It added that before El-Filali's voluntary confession to intelligence officers, he was not subject to any type of investigation.
State security prosecutors were unhappy with the ruling, and presented a memo to Prosecutor-General Maher Abdel-Wahed, seeking a re-trial. In the memo, prosecutors said that the court which acquitted El-Filali misinterpreted the legal provision that allows the acquittal of suspects when they voluntarily report their crime to police. The memo added that suspects can only benefit from this provision "in case they report all the offences committed by the informer, without omitting anything. This was not the case with Sherif El-Filali, because he did not mention in his confessions anything about spying for a foreign country." State security prosecutors also believe that El- Filali may have reported to the intelligence service because he "wanted to work as a double agent."
El-Filali's lawyer, Ahmed Said Abdel- Khaleq, said he is not worried by the new trial, and expressed confidence in his client's innocence. Abdel-Khaleq claimed in the first trial that El-Filali was an investor who acted to attract foreigners to spend money in domestic projects. He added that exhibits seized from El- Filali's home did not have any military significance and the information therein was easily available on the Internet.
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