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Hezbollah Denies Link to Alleged Israeli "Spy"
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| 'Nissim' being brought before the Tel Aviv Court Thursday, June 27, 2002
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BEIRUT,
June 28 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) – Lebanese Islamic
resistance movement Hezbollah denied Friday, June 28, 2002, any link
to an Israeli citizen charged with spying for the movement.
"We
deny having any link or contact with the person named Nissim,"
Hezbollah spokesman Sheikh Hassan Ezzeddine told Agence France-Presse
(AFP).
The
35-year-old suspect, identified only by his first name of Nissim, was
charged Thursday, June 27, 2002, by a Tel Aviv district court.
A
native of Lebanon with a Jewish mother, he immigrated to Israel 10
years ago, according to Israeli public radio.
Shin
Beth, Israel's domestic security service, claimed that Hezbollah
offered to pay the suspect for his services and asked him to produce a
map of the Tel Aviv region and mark up all the electricity and gas
companies in the area.
Shin
Beth also accused Hezbollah of allegedly instructing the so-called
Nissim to photograph similar installations in Haifa, northern Israel,
and the central regions.
The
Israeli “spy” was further allegedly tasked with developing a
rapport with a senior Israeli army officer in a bid to extract
information on military offensives, and to photograph another member
of the security forces.
Shin
Beth claimed that Nissim was to fly abroad to hand over the
information to a Hezbollah representative, who would pay him, but he
was arrested before leaving Israel, the statement said.
Israel
says that since its army pulled out of south Lebanon in May 2000 after
two decades of occupation, Hezbollah has been working to build a
network of collaborators inside Israel and the Palestinian
territories.
Israel
Radio said that in a report published in the Lebanese daily As-Safir
the group said that the charges against the man were part of Israeli
propaganda, in preparation for a strike against Hezbollah and Syrian
targets, Israeli daily Ha’artez reported.
Nissim
was married in 2000 to a 24-year-old woman who immigrated to Israel
from Russia. They have one child and are also raising another child
from another relationship Nissim had, the Israeli paper said.
Hezbollah
was in the forefront of the Lebanese resistance war to oust the
Israelis, and is continuing its campaign to drive them out of the
occupied Shebaa Farms, a border area occupied by Israel from Syria in
1967 and now claimed by Lebanon with Syrian consent.
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