Rifi sees more arrests ahead in spy probe
“We have not completed the mission”
Lebanon”s chief of police said on Tuesday he expected more arrests in an investigation into spying for Israel that has already led to some 35 people being detained.
"We have not completed the mission," Ashraf Rifi said. "We have files that are still being prepared for arrests."
The wave of detentions began in April with the arrest of a former brigadier general of the General Security directorate, together with his wife and nephew. The latest suspects to be held include two serving army colonels.
"Most played central spying roles and confessed to falling into the snares of the Israeli enemy," Rifi told Reuters in an interview, citing sex, money and politics as possible motives.
Lebanon has described the arrests as a major blow to Israel”s intelligence-gathering in a country where it has fought several wars in the past 31 years, most recently in 2006.
Lebanon has formally complained to the United Nations about the alleged spying, which it says is a breach of a Security Council resolution that halted the 34-day conflict.
There has been no official word from Israel.
Rifi said some of those detained were involved in operational missions, including the 2004 assassination of Hizbullah commander Ghalib Awali. He was killed by a bomb in the southern suburbs of Beirut.
He declined to discuss the thread that led to the arrests: "It”s too early to reveal the secret. Nobody would surrender the key that led to this before finishing the mission."
Along with at least five members of Lebanon”s security forces, the detained included a sweet shop owner, stone masons and gas station owners. Three suspects had fled across the border to Israel, Rifi said.
The security forces have displayed what they have described as sophisticated spy gadgetry seized during the probe.
Nine separate spy cells had been uprooted in their entirety, some of them made up of members of the same family and others consisting of no more than an individual, Rifi said.
Hizbullah has called for the death penalty for all those convicted in a case that has made almost daily headlines.
Rifi said some of the suspects had formerly worked with the South Lebanon Army, an Israeli-backed militia that fought Hizbullah during Israel”s occupation of the south of the country, which ended in 2000. He said leniency shown at that time toward Israeli collaborators had been "a great mistake."
Israel”s ability to penetrate Lebanon”s security forces was "regrettable," he added.
"But I reaffirm that this was a limited breach."
In a note to soldiers entitled "The Danger of Israeli Spying," the army command said this week that political instability in Lebanon had "formed a good environment for the enemy to penetrate the interior."
Hinting at Israeli complacency, Rifi said Israel”s disdain for Lebanon”s security forces may have helped them achieve the breakthrough. Israel had underestimated their capacities. "This helped us to surprise it with a great blow."
Espionage equipment “found in colonel”s home”
Arrested Colonel Shahid Toumiyeh has admitted in his interrogation that he was recruited by Israel in the mid-1990s and entrusted with spying on both the Lebanese and the Syrian armies as well as on Hizbullah.
Al-Akhbar newspaper quoted well-informed sources on Tuesday as saying that communication devices – which were being used by Toumiyeh to stay in touch with his Israeli employers – had been confiscated from his home.
In a related development, Lebanon”s General Security Department known as Surete Generale arrested an Egyptian in the southern village of Aita al-Shaab on suspicion of spying for Israel.
They said a security force raided his house and seized a computer set and a number of CD ROMs.
A police patrol also arrested a school teacher in the southern town of Qsseibeh. The teacher, in his 60s, was not identified. But media reports said a computer set was confiscated from his house.
Meanwhile, authorities charged nine people with collaborating with Israel, raising the number of suspects arraigned in the past few weeks to 35.
The state-run National News Agency said military prosecutor Saqr Saqr charged the nine on Tuesday with aiding Israeli forces and providing Israel with information about civilian and military positions and political figures in Lebanon.