Former minister says he was a spy for Iran
A FORMER Israeli minister is set to be jailed for 11 years after admitting he acted as a spy for Iran.
Gonen Segev, who was an energy minister between 1995 and 1996, will be sentenced as part of a plea deal, the Israeli Justice Ministry said.
He was extradited to Israel in June 2018 from Equitorial Guinea.
Segev had been visiting the central African country from Nigeria, where he had been living for several years. He was found to have made contact with officials at the Iranian embassy there six years previously.
The Shin Bet intelligence service said he had supplied Iran with “information related to the energy sector, security sites in Israel and officials in political and security institutions.”
He also twice visited Iran for meetings with his handlers and received an encrypted communications system from Iranian agents, it added.
Segev, who is a trained doctor, served in governments led by Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres in 1995 and 1996.
He was previously jailed for five years in 2005 for trying to smuggle tens of thousands of ecstasy tablets into Israel from the Netherlands, and was released two years later.
The plea deal has yet to be formally approved by an Israeli court, Reuters reported.
Iran did not immediately respond to the development.