A court on Monday remanded in custody for eight days Ali Mansouri, an alleged Iranian spy, arrested on September 11 carrying photographs of the US embassy in Tel Aviv and other sites in Israel.
Mansouri had entered Israel on September 6 with a Belgian passport under the name of Alex Mans.
An AFP cameraman at the court said that in his first public appearance Ali Mansouri, 55, was silent and motionless as he sat in handcuffs, wearing a brown prison uniform.
He has not yet been charged.
News of the arrest have been under gag order until Sunday. It was made public just hours after Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu left for the US, determined to expose what he described as "sweet talk" by Israel's arch-foe Iran. The Shin Bet, Israel’s security agency revealed that Mansouri was arrested earlier this month after being suspected of gathering intelligence for Iran's Revolutionary Guard.
Israeli media quoted a police representative as telling the magistrates' court, that the decision to ask for the lifting of a gag order on the arrest was made ''at a high level.''
Daily newspaper Yediot Aharonot was suspicious of the timing.
“Security services do not hurry to reveal, of their own volition, recent espionage affairs," its defense commentator Alex Fishman wrote.
"An espionage network is too important an operational card to trade with publicly, unless there is a particularly important operational or diplomatic interest that requires such disclosure," he added.
“In the case of the Iranian spy Ali Mansouri, the diplomatic interest behind the affair is completely transparent: Israel is trying to embarrass the Iranians in response to the successful public relations campaign that Iranian President (Hasan) Rouhani conducted in the US in the past week."
Public radio's veteran defense correspondent Carmella Menashe echoed those suspicions.
"Security sources tell us that details of the investigation would have emerged anyway in the coming days," she said. "They confirm that there were additional considerations of national interest.
"The national interest considerations were the Prime Minister's trip to the US and his speech at the UN."
Israeli security officials conceded that the timing of the announcement regarding the arrest was "not a coincidence, and has to do with new developments in Iran and the thawing of relations between the U.S. and Iran." But the Shin Bet stressed that the arrest and the subsequent announcement had nothing to do with Israel Prime Minister Netanyahu's trip to the US or his meeting with US President Barack Obama.
According to the Shin Bet, Mansouri, a 55-year-old businessman – named Alex Mans - who has Belgian citizenship and is of Iranian descent - was recruited by the Iranian IRGC (the Quds Force) and sent to Israel in order to establish business firms, which would serve as a platform for clandestine activity of the Iranian regime apparatuses against Israeli and Western interests. In exchange for this activity, he was promised a sum of one million dollars.
His original name is Ali Mansouri and was sent to Israel by Iranian intelligence elements for the execution of various missions.
Mansouri's handling in Israel was carried out by the Quds Force Special Operations unit, headed by Hamed Abdolahi and Majid Alavi; the commander of IRGC Quds Force is Ghassem Soleimani. This Special Operations unit is in charge, inter alia, for the execution of attacks against Israel – abroad as well as in Israel – and against other Iranian targets in the West and the Middle East.
Iran tried to use the man in order to bypass the embargo on trade and financial transactions. He made three visits in Israel using his Belgian identity. He tried to develop business relations and contracts with business owners in Tel Aviv. He was arrested by the Israel Security Agency and the police's unit of International Crime Investigations at Ben Gurion Airport while he was trying to board a plane for Belgium.
According to Shin Bet, the business firms were intended to conceal intensive intelligence and terror activities carried out by the Iranian apparatuses. One of his Belgian companies was named as “European Folding Glass System.” Following his handlers' instructions, Mansouri used a business cover of trading in and marketing windows and roofing for stores and restaurants and tried to establish business relations with business owners in Tel Aviv.
Mansouri had held three visits in Israel using his Belgian identity. He tried to develop business relations and contracts with business owners in Tel Aviv. He was arrested by Israel’s Security Agency and the police's unit of International Crime Investigations at Ben Gurion Airport in the night of on September 11 while trying to depart for Belgium.
Mansouri had held three visits in Israel using his Belgian identity. He tried to develop business relations and contracts with business owners in Tel Aviv. He was arrested by Israel’s Security Agency and the police's unit of International Crime Investigations at Ben Gurion Airport in the night of on September 11 while trying to depart for Belgium.
Mansouri was born in Iran and lived there with his family until 1980. In 1980 he moved to Turkey where he resided until 1997. In Turkey he began to develop business activities.
Due to his business activity, in 1997 Mansouri received a visa which allowed him to reside in Belgium. In 2006, after marrying a Belgian woman, he received a Belgian citizenship, whom he later divorced. In addition, in 2006 he changed his name to Alex Mans in order to conceal his Iranian identity.
During his interrogation, Mansouri revealed that in 2007 he had returned to Iran and acted to expand his business activity in Iran, Belgium and Turkey. During these years he resided alternately in Iran, Turkey and Brussels. He also married an Iranian citizen. His European citizenship and business activity singled him out as an attractive target for recruitment by the Iranian intelligence elements.
Over the years, contacts were established with Mansouri by various elements of the regime apparatuses and in early 2012 he was explicitly offered to act on their behalf against the state of Israel.
Mansouri was instructed by his handlers to set up a business infrastructure in Israel which would conceal the intelligence activity of Iran in Israel and be used by the Iranian elements for various purposes in the region. For this purpose, he was instructed to make a visit in Israel, establish business ties and sign contracts leading to continued business activity.
He was promised large sums of money to fund his activity; a sum of one million dollars was mentioned. Mansouri made two previous short trips to Israel, in July 2012 and January 2013 according to the instructions of his handlers in the Iranian Intelligence.
He always introduced himself as a Belgian businessman and even used websites and a Facebook profile presenting his alleged business activity.
Upon his arrest, many photographs of various sites in Israel which are of interest to the Iranian intelligence elements such as the building of the US Embassy at Ha'Yarkon Street in Tel Aviv were found in his possession.
During his ISA interrogation, Mansouri described his many month recruitment and handling and delivered many details on his handlers and their methods of communication.
The IRGC Quds Force, which recruited him, is behind the attack in which a woman employee of the Israeli Embassy in Delhi was injured (February 2012), the attack attempts in Bangkok and Tbilisi (February 2012) and several attacks that were prevented in recent years (Azerbaijan, Kenya, Nigeria).
According to commentator Yoav Limor from Israel Hayom daily, ‘’Iran followed the playbooks of the most advanced intelligence agencies in the world.’’
‘’This recruit was a quality asset -- an Iranian national with a foreign passport who was an easy recruiting target thanks to his need for Iranian business permits. The method was reliable -- he registered a legitimate company in Belgium, opened offices, maintained a Facebook page for his business, printed business cards with authentic telephone numbers, and did actual business. He located Israeli businesspeople and signed business contracts with them for the purpose of real work in construction and glass veneers.’’
He added: ‘’Unlike other intelligence agents apprehended in Israel in recent years, this spy was a professional. He underwent prolonged training (more than a year) that included various methods of intelligence gathering, with an emphasis on photography. His cover story was well established, and he was very careful to keep his identities and passports separate (using his Belgian passport exclusively to enter Israel and travel in Europe and his Iranian passport for visits to Iran). He was extremely cautious and made sure to compartmentalize his contacts with handlers in Tehran.’’