The Spy rush reached Algeria

The first espionage case in Algeria

Please forgive if I misspelled lots of words here ,the Algerian Arabic words are hard to be translated correctly

First of all this is the first time I hear about an espionage case for a foreign country against a country in the west Arab world "Algeria,Morocco, Tunisia,Mauritania" ,already I always believed  that secret services there are made only to suppress the enemies of the regime not the country ,I am sorry I don't mean to offend to anyone but this is a reality no one can deny , a historical fact

Anyhow it seems that I was wrong because in Algeria there is a big espionage case ,already I have just knew from my favorite tabloid Arabic news website El-Arabiya that made me dig more and more abut the news

According to the official news the published in daily Algerian El-Sharouk this is what happened :

On the 6/7/2007 the Crimes court following the Tizi Ouzou  judicial Council began the first espionage trial the country sees since the independence , the alleged spies are two Algerian citizens and they are charged to spy for foreign countries :Israel,Morocco and Spain ,  mainly they were spying for the Israeli Mossad as they were charged to collect and deliver top secret documents ,reports, official documents and information that harm the national security of the country and give them to a foreign country. This is the first time the civil courts to see such cases as in the past it was from the specialization of the military court

Citizens "S. Said" and "T. Ali" as what was mentioned in the G.A reports were concentrating their spying activities mainly in "Tizi Ouzou"{The tribes} especially about the conditions of the civil society organizations that work in the area and the security conditions there not to mention the economic situation of the area, also the problems and conflicts that happened in the tribes area in the last couple of years especially after the "Al-Rosh" crisis in 2001

 The security forces found evidence in their houses from reports and top confidential documents that contained security information about the Algerian state.

This was the summary of what was mentioned in daily Algerian El-Sharouk , not much if we considered that this is the first espionage case the country sees as they described of course I don't think so ,I think it is only the first case from its kind the civil courts see it , don't forget in countries like Algeria these kinds of cases are dealt with lots of secrecy, anyhow there was a promise that the trial would be a public and  there would be a huge media attendance whether locally or internationally ,of course the news agencies were there , the French press was surely there and the Arabic media too especially Al-Arabiya , Al-Hurra TV "The American administration Arabic channel" and AlAlam "the Iranian channel" , I notice that "Al-Jazeera" was not there and even the news mentioned in their website is from Reuters !! It is the second time I notice that the Qatari news channel seemed to be uninterested in espionage cases that affects the Arabic national security , strangely they had ignored the Ashraf  Marwan affair in a strange way ,only they were kind enough to publish the Reuters articles without any addition what so ever !!???

The huge surprise was that the public trial turned in to a closed private one and thus all those journalists didn't have the opportunity to see the accused nor interviewed their families , the media circus that always held  in the Egyptian Courts did n't reach to the Algerian court, it was a surprise. Already the court started in the usual way at 9.45 AM , the accused entered first than the Judge "a lady Judge for a national security case ,wow this is impressive, lady judges in Egypt are in the family court only" entered the court and announced the start of the trial yet she she ordered immediately all the media and all the attendance to leave the court except the very close relatives of the accused ,the wife and the daughters of Said and the brothers of Ali beside their defense

The justification was that the Judge didn't like the huge presence of the media ,especially the Arabic press requested as they use to do in Egypt to interview the families of the accused and the accused themselves for few minutes , the judge for sure is not used to this kind of stuff like in Egypt and thus she suggested on the G.A to make a private trial instead of public and he agreed , of course the press is angry and I am angry because I don't have the opportunity to hear the other side of the story , this shows the difference between us and the Algerian authorities by the way

Now to the real details of the case

The names of accused are :

Sahanon Said

• born in January  1963 in Tizi Ouzou State
• He finished high school in June 1982,Studied in "Mouloud Mammeri" University where he took the Bachelor degree in Economics in 1986
• From year 1986 to 1988 he joined the national service "I think this is the military service name in Algeria"
• Then he went to Switzerland to get a PHD in the Economics and from there he started his visits to various African countries
• Lives currently at "El-Nakhil"quarter at Tizi Ouzou
• Married and his wife is working in the national board for Tourism at Tizi Ouzou and has three girls I think "not sure"
• Used to work as a freelance journalist in several national newspapers during his study in university,the thing which encouraged him to work as a journalist for various African newspapers
• He was arrested by the Algerian authorities before in December 1995 on the Algerian borders

Towair Ali

• born in March 1976 in M'Sila State
• He left high school in the third year and didn't complete his education
• He joined the national service in 1997
• Took a diploma in cars in 1999
• The he joined the police force to work as a Police officer in Tizi Ouzou state
• He is a single

The story can be a straight forward espionage case yet there are surprising details ,for example there is something I don't understand ,the dates are inconsistent , I will leave it to you

According to the confessions of the accused mainly Sahanon ,the relationship with Israel started in year 1993 when he was the editor in chief of "Le matin" newspaper in the Ivory Coast which was stopped from publishing during the civil war and wrote a portrait for the late Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin ,already the Algerian press is saying that he wrote about the late Israeli PM Shimon Peres !! one thing for sure dear Algerians are not familiar with the Israeli politicians nor political history like us in Egypt simply because Shimon Perez is not dead ,he is alive and kicking and even became the President of the Hebrew state

Sahanon seemed to praise Rabin and his policies towards peace in the region that he wrote the portrait under the title of "Window to peace"!! It seems that the Portrait was so impressive at least from the Israeli point of view as the Israeli Ambassador in the Ivory Coast called him and thus from that relation began ,there is no clear information about how they recruited him or why he worked for them clearly ,I mean during 1993 he was heading as editor in chief for two African french language newspapers !!

Now according to the confessions and investigations he met with the Israeli Ambassador in Abidjan personally in year 1996 where the Ambassador invited him immediately to visit Israel ,then again he repeated the invitation this time professionally to attend a special forum organized by Israel for the Arab Journalists who have good relation with it ,according to Sahanon he informed the Security back in Algeria and they didn't show any objection and thus he packed his bag and went to Morocco to get a plane to Tel Aviv

There in the forum or the Seminar ,he seemed that he did not take courses in Journalism but in advanced espionage , as he was taught accordingly how to prepare political,economic and security reports and how to get to the information "Well it seems to that this forum or seminar or what ever it was ,was so interesting that I believe we must know the names of the other Arab journalists who were there"

Anyhow according to his confession which is the official story of the Algerian intelligence the first contact with the Mossad officers happened there and at that seminar in 1996 he was recruited by the Mossad to be their eye in the trouble area of the tribes in Tizi Ouzo

The Story till now as I said is straight forward yet I don't understand how in 1996 he traveled to Israel and was recruited there while he was arrested on Algerian-Moroccan borders "Hot Zone" by the Moroccan borders police  in 1995 with very important documents about the Tizi state with information regarding the tribes there , the most wanted list , the police documents and documents about "El-Aroosh" group {it is an opposition militia group in Algeria in the tribes area}

The Moroccan police had arrested him and exchanged him according to the extradition agreement between the two countries along with the documents and he was sent to a military court in the Tizi State State attorney "G.A" decided to transfer the case to the civil court in March 2006 in Tizi State

There he confessed that the police officer who leaked to him all the important security documents that he was transferring was Towair Ali who gave him the list of the terrorists names

As you see there is something wrong , I mean he was arrested in 1995 and then he went back to Abidjan to meet the Israeli Ambassador and go to Israel in 1996 !! It doesn't make sense ,there is something wrong ,either in the way they wrote the story in the Algerian newspaper or in the details that were released by the security there

I think the correct story ,the logic one was that he was recruited in Abidjan , he had not to go to Tel Aviv to be recruited hell no, he was recruited in Abidjan ,already I read that he sent his reports directly to the Israeli Ambassador there, in 1996 he may have gone to Tel Aviv to complete his training , more training for him , still I don't understand the arresting in 1995 , as far as I read as mentioned above the case was in front of the military court !!

Sahanon used to take according to the confession 1500 $ as a monthly salary for his reports and let me tell you something , either he used to be one hell of a spy that the Mossad would give him a monthly salary or either this sum was for each report he used to present and I believe the last assumption is the correct one, the logic one according to similar cases in Egypt

The other accused person in the case Ali , well his brother and his defense said that the man didn't know that Said was a spy working for the Mossad and that the lists of wanted terrorists with their photos are available in every police station in all the states in Algeria , of course he didn't give him only this information , he gave him information about the locations of the National army locations and other security details , of course I may not wonder about how Ali gave him the terrorists lists but I wonder about the other information , as Ali is an  officer without a rank who didn't complete his education , as far as I know his equivalent in Egypt would not be an officer, anyway , how Ali could reach for important information ,strategic security one about one of the most hot zones in Algeria with his small rank !!??

The General Attorney in Algeria demanded that Said , the primary accused in the case to be jailed for 20 years while for the second one Ali he demanded 10 years in Jail

Strangely according to the Algerian security services Sahanon Said was not only working for the Mossad but also was working for the Spanish intelligence "!Hola¡" yes he was a double agent , yet there is nothing mentioned about how he became a double agent

I want to comment more but now is enough ,I believe the Algerian Press should learn from us how to cover such cases , I mean any Israeli will laugh if he reads that his president now is dead !!

Sources :

• Huge foreign Media attention From El-Sharouk
• A Private trial for the two Mossad Spy agents From El-Sharouk and Al-Arabiya"
• G.A requests 20 years in Jail for the Spy From El-Sharouk

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