Ammon News - * The Jordanian communications engineer accused of spying for Israel attempts to implicate the Egyptian business tycoon Naguib Sawiris in the espionage affair

CAIRO - The State Security Emergency Court has decided to postpone the case of alleged Jordanian spy Bashar Abu Zaid and Israeli Mossad agent Ophir Harare to 2 January 2012.

Abu Zaid was arrested in January of this year and was his case was referred, along with the case of fugitive Harare, to the criminal court.

Abu Zaid is accused of planting communication networks in various parts of Egypt, using them to spy on Egyptian officials and relaying the information to Harare in return for a sum of money.

Tuesday’s session began at 11am and lasted for only 15 minutes. The head of the court asked to speak privately to Abu Zaid for five minutes. Abu Zaid reportedly stormed angrily out of the room and threatened to go on a hunger strike.

“God forgive you, but you don’t even want me to defend myself,” Abu Zaid screamed in the court. “The Egyptian revolution did not change anything in Egypt.”

Abu Zaid, a communications engineer, also hurled an accusation at Egyptian billionaire Naguib Sawiris, a founding member of the liberal Free Egyptians Party and former chairman of the Mobinil telecommunications company.

“Sawiris tried to poison me while I was in prison so that the truth dies with me!” Abu said shouted.

It is not yet clear what Abu Zaid meant by his comment, but it was reported earlier this year that five officials from Mobinil were called by the state security court for questioning, including Sawiris and current CEO Eskandar Shalaby.

Mobinil became involved in the case when investigations revealed the presence of the company’s transmission towers in the district of El-Oga in northern Sinai, used to pass Abu Zaid’s phone calls to Israeli intelligence officials in Tel Aviv.

The court also questioned the transmission’s tower security officers for allegedly allowing Abu Zaid to install spying equipment in order to eaveson calls between Egyptian officials. (Ahram Online)