Israeli police and secret services have arrested a former energy minister and charged him with spying for Iran and helping an enemy during war time, the Shin Bet security agency said on Monday.
Gonen Segev, a former energy and infrastructure minister in the early 1990s, was arrested in May and was charged last Friday with spying against Israel for Iran, the security service said in a statement cleared for publication by the Israeli media today.
The Israeli services have discovered during their investigation that Segev had been recruited by Iran and became an agent for its intelligence services.
Segev, who served time in Israel between 2005 and 2007 for trying to smuggle ecstasy from the Netherlands to Israel, had been living in Nigeria recently. Last month, he tried to enter Equatorial Guinea, but local authorities refused to let him in based on his criminal past. Equatorial Guinea’s police handed Segev over to Israeli police and he was arrested upon arrival in Israel.
The police and security services had received intelligence that Segev was keeping contacts with the Iranian intelligence and was helping Iran against Israel, the Israeli services say.
According to the investigation, Segev established a connection with Iranians at the Iranian embassy in Nigeria in 2012. The former Israeli minister is also believed to have traveled to Iran twice for meetings with Iranian intelligence officers.
According to the Israeli investigators, Segev provided Iran with information concerning Israel’s energy market, security sites in Israel, buildings, and officials at Israeli political and security bodies, among others.
According to Israel, Segev maintained contacts with Israeli citizens in the defense and security sectors, as well as with Israeli diplomats in order to obtain information. The former Israeli minister was working to connect some of the Israelis with Iranian intelligence agents, by claiming that the Iranians were innocent business people, the Israeli security services say.
