Relatives of an Australian immigrant to Israel who killed himself in 2010 while secretly jailed on charges of violating national security are seeking compensation from the state, a source briefed on the affair said on Friday.
An Australian immigrant, reported to have been recruited by Israel\’s Mossad spy agency, was charged with grave crimes before he committed suicide in an Israeli jail, one of his lawyers said on Thursday.
We think we have some important stories to tell, and thus we returned to the subject of Israeli espionage. Our first effort in that field was a book in 1990 titled “Every Spy a Prince.” Twenty-two years later, we spoke with more people and got more stories — about recent events, but also new details about important operations going back to the beginnings of the Jewish state in 1948.
Israel\’s military attaché in Moscow was arrested and expelled earlier this week, it was revealed on Wednesday, with sources saying that the top Israel Defense Forces officer was questioned over espionage suspicions.
Top officials at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) have appeared before a grand jury and two senior staffers have been placed on paid leave in the latest developments in the federal investigation of the pro-Israel lobby for allegedly passing classified information to Israel, according to multiple sources with direct knowledge of the case.
At the same time, the Pentagon staffer at the center of the allegations, accused of espionage by the FBI and then pressured into an alleged FBI \”sting\” against AIPAC, has been quietly rehired by the Pentagon, over the FBI\’s objections.
Playwright Martin Blank confesses he has an affinity for spy stories.
Thirteen Jews originally were arrested on espionage charges in the winter of 1999. Many of the accused \”confessed\” to the charges, though Jewish groups scoffed at the idea that the confessions were offered freely. Several later recanted.
From the start, Martin Indyk\’s career as a U.S. official has been filled with intrigue.As the first Jewish ambassador to Israel and later the top State Department official in charge of Middle East policy, Indyk\’s words and actions have been scrutinized by Jews and Arabs, by proponents and opponents of the peace process.
The release on bail this week of three Iranian Jewish prisoners has raised hopes for their future, but not alleviated concerns that they and the other 10 accused of espionage will not receive a fair trial.
Graham Greene and John Le Carré have been there before: A shadowy source with access to the highest reaches of an enemy regime. A vain, furtive secret service handler with a chip on his shoulder, who insists that the informant will speak to no one but him. A steady flow of alarming exclusive reports, plausible but inherently uncheckable. An intelligence community more concerned with protecting its turf than investigating all the way when suspicions were first aroused.
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