Supreme Court extends jail term of convicted Iran-backed terror cell member
Court adds year to sentence of Nazareth resident Hamad Hammadi, raising it to 7, after prosecutor argued spate of recent Iran espionage cases creates special need for deterrence
Add ToI as a Preferred Source on GoogleJeremy Sharon is The Times of Israel’s legal affairs and settlements reporter
The Supreme Court on Sunday added a year to the prison sentence of Nazareth resident Hamad Hammadi, who in 2024 was found guilty of joining an Iranian-operated terrorist cell.
Hammadi, who was convicted of arson and contact with a foreign agent, will now spend seven years in jail instead of six.
He set fire to four cars in Haifa on June 21, 2023, and carried out other activities on the orders of individuals from Jenin, in the West Bank, who were themselves acting on orders of an Iranian intelligence operative in Jordan.
In its ruling Sunday, the court said contact with a foreign agent is one of the most severe crimes in the Israeli penal code because of the potential for danger to national security.
The court also accepted the prosecution’s argument that there was a special need to deter other people from carrying out similar crimes, amid dozens of recent cases of Israeli citizens allegedly recruited by Iran to carry out hostile actions.
Last week, the Department of Internal Police Investigations said it questioned a detective from the Lahav 433 major crimes unit on suspicion of contact with an Iranian agent. The unit has overseen some of the investigations into alleged Iranian recruits.
Most of the recruits in Israel are spurred on by the promise of easy money and begin by carrying out mundane tasks — like filming and spraying graffiti in public areas. These requests typically escalate, if contact is maintained, into more serious offenses, including espionage, intelligence gathering and even assassination plots.
Charlie Summers and Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.
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