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 | | Saturday, 23 March, 2002, 15:04 GMT Egyptian convicted of spying for Israel  Al-Filali handed himself in to the authorities An Egyptian court has sentenced an engineer to 15 years in prison with hard labour after it convicted him of spying for Israel. In June last year, a court acquitted the accused, Sherif al-Filali, of the same charges, but President Hosni Mubarak threw out the ruling and ordered a retrial. The engineer had pleaded innocent to charges that he had provided information to Israel with the intent of "harming the country's national interests". Israel has also denied that he was its spy. Co-defendant Gregory Cevets, a Russian citizen, was sentenced in absentia to 25 years in prison with hard labour. Innocent Sherif al-Filali has been in detention since September 2000.
Prosecutors said he was recruited by Cevets in Spain. Court documents said al-Filali travelled between Spain and Egypt in 1999, before realising he was collecting information for Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency. He then turned himself in to the Egyptian authorities. During his first trial, the judges ruled that although the state had proved its case against al-Filali, the engineer was innocent because he had come forward about his actions. Appeal However, his acquittal caused a stir in Egypt, and President Mubarak - under an emergency law in place since President Anwar Sadat's assassination in 1981 - ordered a retrial. The chief judge at al-Filali's second trial, Mohammed Shalabi, ruled that the engineer "had collaborated with the Israeli intelligence service Mossad". His parents, who were in court for the verdict, insisted on al-Filali's innocence, accusing the authorities of conspiring against their son. Al-Filali's lawyer, Ahmed Saeed Abdel Khaleq, told the French news agency AFP that he would make a last-ditch appeal to President Mubarak to annul the verdict. | | See also:  Internet links: The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites Top Middle East stories now:  Links to more Middle East stories are at the foot of the page. | |
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