Overturning acquittal, top court convicts woman on spying charge for Iran
Justices finds district court was wrong not to conclude that man who contacted defendant and asked for sensitive security information was an ‘enemy’ agent
An Israeli woman was convicted on Wednesday on a spying charge for Iran after the Supreme Court overturned a previous 2023 ruling by a district court exonerating her.
A panel of three judges accepted an appeal by prosecutors that the woman, who cannot be named in media, should be convicted of passing information that could be useful to an enemy agent. However, the court did not alter her original sentence of two and a half months in prison for contact with a foreign agent, despite feeling it should be adjusted, because the appeal had not contested that part of the case.
In their ruling, Supreme Court Justices Judge Yosef Elron, Alex Stein, and Ruth Ronen focused on the aspect that information was passed to an “enemy” agent, rather than just a foreign actor, finding that the Jerusalem District Court should have reached the same conclusion.
The Shin Bet security service announced in January 2022 that it had arrested five Jewish Israelis accused of assisting an Iranian operative calling himself “Rambod Namdar,” who often pretended to be a Jewish man, in gathering intelligence and making connections in Israel. The five suspects — four women and one man — were all Jewish immigrants from Iran or descendants of Iranian immigrants.
Four were eventually acquitted, or the charges were dropped, but the woman was charged with maintaining contact with an Iranian agent between 2014 and 2018 and providing him information, including photographing various sites in Israel. Namdar presented himself as an Iranian Muslim bachelor interested in Judaism, but prosecutors said the woman suspected that he was working for the regime in Tehran.
The Jerusalem District Court in 2023 convicted the woman of contact with a foreign agent, but cleared her of the charge of conveying information that may benefit the enemy.
Elron said there was enough evidence to show that Namdar was an “enemy” agent, rejecting the lower court’s conclusion that though he was apparently a foreign agent, it was not clear that he was working for an enemy.
“His obvious interest in the security of the State of Israel, its institutions, and its operations, while working tirelessly to collect sensitive information, indicates that this is someone who acted on behalf of the enemy,” the justices wrote.
In their appeal, prosecutors pointed to the topics Namdar showed interest in when conversing with the Israeli women he contacted, the tasks he asked of the women, and the kind of information he asked them to obtain for him, which included attempts to identify family members in the security forces. He also asked for information about the location of military bases, Mossad and Shin Bet headquarters, security arrangements in public places, and sought personal details of senior security officials.
In addition, the woman herself told police during her investigation that she “99 percent” suspected that Namdar was an Iranian agent.
“Someone who appears to be an Iranian agent and behaves like an Iranian agent is an Iranian agent,” Stein wrote.
Elron criticized the prosecution for only appealing against the acquittal and not the two-and-a-half-month jail sentence that the woman was given for her conviction, a punishment he described as “ridiculous.”
However, because the appeal was not against the sentence, he said the court’s “hands are tied” in adjusting the prison time which he said should have been “a most significant period behind bars.”
The prosecution responded to the ruling in a statement that the court’s decision “stresses the duty Israeli citizens have to take extra caution in ties with foreign entities and strengthen state security defense against intelligence threats.”
Namdar was reportedly in contact with around 20 other Israelis, the majority of them women.
Over the past two years, Iranian intelligence operatives have ramped up their efforts to recruit ordinary Israelis as spies in exchange for money.
The Supreme Court ruling came days after the State Attorney’s Office filed an indictment at the Beersheba District Court on charges of treason against Eduard Yusupov, a 65-year-old resident of Netivot, for having allegedly conducted spying activities on behalf of Iran.
Yusupov carried out various acts of espionage for an Iranian agent and received $41,000 in payment for his work, offenses which carry with them sentences of up to 15 years in prison.
According to the indictment, Yusupov, an immigrant who came to Israel from Azerbaijan, contacted an old acquaintance of his by the name of Tair in November 2024, who introduced him to a man called Mousa.
Mousa claimed to be seeking to open a business in Israel but was an Iranian agent and, communicating via WhatsApp, gave Yusupov a series of spying missions to carry out.
At Mousa’s request, Yusupov collected, photographed, and documented sensitive information about “national infrastructure sites” around the country, including IDF bases, military sites in the Negev, the Haifa port, as well as parks, libraries, zoos, and commercial and leisure centers.
Yusupov also rented an apartment for Mousa in Hafia with a view of the port from where he photographed ships and industrial chimneys in the port zone.
The indictment noted that Yusupov was careful to work in secret and operated with caution in order not to be discovered.
“The accused committed security offenses at a time when the State of Israel was conducting one of the toughest wars it has known, on multiple fronts, including against Iran,” the prosecutors wrote in the indictment.
“The accused suspected that Mousa was a foreign agent who was hostile to the State of Israel but continued to cooperate with him.”
Yusupov was charged with transmitting information to an enemy to harm state security, transmitting information to an enemy designed to assist them, contacting a foreign agent, and demonstrating a decision to commit treason.
In January, prosecutors charged two IDF reservists serving in an air defense unit with spying for Iran.
Last December, the police arrested nearly 30 Israelis, mostly Jewish citizens, for espionage activities on behalf of Iran.
In most of these cases, the suspects began by carrying out small, innocuous tasks that gradually grew into more serious offenses, like intelligence gathering and assassination plots.
In October 2024, seven Israelis were arrested for allegedly photographing and collecting information on IDF bases and facilities, including the Nevatim and Ramat David air bases, which were targeted by both Iran and Hezbollah in 2024.
Police have cautioned Israeli citizens and residents against “engaging in contact with foreign operatives and carrying out tasks for them,” and have vowed to take harsh legal action against those involved in such activities.
The Times of Israel Community.