An Israeli man from southern Israel has recently been indicted for allegedly contacting and abetting an enemy entity.
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The man, prominent Bedouin businessman Yakub Abu Al-Kiyan, was briefly a candidate for the Knesset in the runup to the March 23 election.
He is accused of making contact with a man called Haider and telling him he was in fact Iraqi. The two would hold regular phone correspondence, including via text and WhatsApp, first for business purposes and then in order to discuss political matters. Haider turned out to be Haider Al-Mashhadani, who is an agent working for the Iranian intelligence.
Haider, who denies any wrongdoing, allegedly boasted that he was close to the decision-makers in Israel because he was briefly placed in the Knesset candidate list of former Israel Defense Force chief Moshe Ya'alon and even posted pictures of various senior officials posing with him on social media. Haider was apparently intrigued by these posts and said that senior Iranians and Iraqis would like to meet him.
He would eventually, according to the indictment, provide Haider with information on Israeli security forces and on transactions between Israel and the US based on his relations with Israeli officials, with the goal of convincing the Iranian government to pay him.
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