BICOM

Israel denied on Tuesday that Ilan Grapel, a dual US and Israeli citizen arrested in Egypt on suspicion of espionage, is a spy. On Sunday, an Egyptian Judge of the supreme state security prosecution ordered Grapel to be detained for 15 days on suspicion of “spying on Egypt with the aim of harming its economic and political interests,” MENA news agency reported, while claiming that he worked for the Mossad, Israel’s espionage agency. At first the Israeli foreign ministry refused to comment on the newspaper reports circulating about Grapel. Later, however, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman told Israel Army Radio “This is a student, perhaps a little strange or a little careless. He has no connection to any intelligence apparatus, not in Israel, not in the US and not on Mars.”

The parents of Ilan Grapel, who resides in New York, said that their son was in Egypt as part of his law studies in the Emory University. “They have an assignment. Every year they go to a different country, and this year he was sent to Cairo. He left on May 9 and arrived via Europe the following day. He arrived after the revolution, so the claims he incited the protests are lies.”

Yesterday, State Department spokesman Mark Toner confirmed that the US was aware of Grapel’s arrest. Toner qualified that “it’s very preliminary information, but we are aware that US citizen Ilan Haim Grappel was detained on June 12th by Egyptian authorities. A consular official did visit Mr. Grappel on June 13th at the prosecutor’s office. That was in New Cairo. We’ve confirmed that he was in good health.” The Egyptian authorities involved Washington in the matter, due to the fact that Grapel entered Egypt with his US passport

Grapel immigrated to Israel from the United States and joined the IDF in March 2005. He served in the Paratroopers’ 101st Battalion and was injured during the Second Lebanon War. After Grapel was discharged from the army he went to law school. Apparently, he chose to travel to Egypt for his course because of his fluency in Arabic.