AFP: An Egyptian was jailed for 35 years by an emergency tribunal Sunday for spying for Iran and plotting to assassinate Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in a sentence that cannot be appealed. The court also sentenced former Iranian diplomat Mohammed Reza Doust to 25 years’ imprisonment in absentia for being Egyptian Mahmud Aid Dabbus’s handler. AFP
CAIRO – An Egyptian was jailed for 35 years by an emergency tribunal Sunday for spying for Iran and plotting to assassinate Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in a sentence that cannot be appealed.
The court also sentenced former Iranian diplomat Mohammed Reza Doust to 25 years’ imprisonment in absentia for being Egyptian Mahmud Aid Dabbus’s handler.
Dabbus was sentenced to 25 years for “having plotted to assassinate the president of the republic and for spying and obtaining payments from a foreign country,” said presiding judge Adel Adbel Salam.
He was sentenced to an additional “10 years for (sharing) intelligence with a foreign country with the aim of destabilising in Egypt,” said the judge.
Dabbus reacted to the sentencing with cries of “injustice” from his cage inside the courtroom, while his sister tried to calm him before he was led away by police to Cairo’s Tura prison where he is due to serve his time.
The Egyptian was accused of giving Iran details about oil installations at the Saudi port of Yanbu, where six Westerners were killed in a shooting rampage in May that was blamed on Islamist militants.
Dabbus had worked at Yanbu, according to the prosecution, and was paid 150,000 dollars for his Saudi and Egyptian information and given an extra 10,000 dollars for the Yanbu details.
The former Iranian diplomat was sentenced for “taking part in a terrorist bid and an attempt to destabilise the Egyptian regime.”
Doust worked at the Iranian interests section in Cairo but had been transferred before Dabbus was arrested at his home on the Suez canal in November.
“Dabbus sacrificed his country’s interests for a fistful of dollars, allied himself with Satan and submitted himself to him,” said Adbel Salam.
Tehran has denied all involvement in the case, with the foreign ministry issuing a statement in December saying: “This scenario has been concocted under the influence of Iran’s enemies who serve the interests of the Zionists and are working against the interests of the countries of the region.”
Dabbus had earlier told the court that confessions detailed in the charge sheet had been “extracted under torture”.
His brother, Ayman Dabbus, said in Jarnuary that the accused was innocent and had been “implicated in this affair to enable the United States to put pressure on Iran through the intermediary of Egypt.”
The trial has soured a slow detente between Tehran and Cairo, which broke off diplomatic relations following Iran’s Islamic revolution of 1979.
