How Did a Former Israeli Minister Become a Spy for Iran?
Being accused of spying on behalf of Iran is not Gonen Segev’s first controversy, though it is by far the most severe. The former Israeli lawmaker and government minister was once imprisoned for smuggling ecstasy tablets into Israel and was also convicted for credit card fraud – but none of that will prepare him for the charges he’s up against now. Segev is accused of doing intelligence work for Iran while working at a clinic in Nigeria. If charged with treason and handing information to Israel’s arch-foe, Iran, he could face life in prison or even the death penalty.
The tidbits released by the police and the Shin Bet read like something from a classic spy novel. In 2012, they said, contact had been made between Mr. Segev and people from Iran’s embassy in Nigeria. The first contact was with Iran’s agricultural attaché in Nigeria… Mr. Segev is said to have traveled to Iran twice to see his handlers and met them in hotels and apartments around the world. He received secret communications equipment for encoding messages between him and his handlers, according to the statement by the Israeli authorities.
Shin Bet alleged that he had given the handlers information relating to Israel’s energy sector, security sites in Israel, and officials in political and security institutions, and also put the handlers in contact with some Israelis involved in the security sector by introducing them as businessmen. On Friday, Segev was indicted in a Jerusalem court on charges of “assisting an enemy during a time of war and espionage against the State of Israel”, as well as multiple offences of “handing over information to the enemy”.
Segev, who served as energy and infrastructure minister between January 1995 and June 1996, is the highest-ranking Israeli official ever charged with spying on Israel. He joins a long of senior officials, including MKs and top security brass, who have been charged with treason through the decades, though the 62-year-old is the first to have been credibly accused to have worked for Iran.