Jerusalem–Israel's foreign minister said Tuesday that a US-born Israeli arrested in Egypt on espionage charges is not a spy, offering the first official Israeli comment on the case.
Ilan Grapel, who served in the Israeli army as a paratrooper, "has no connection to any intelligence agency, not in Israel, not in the US and not on Mars," Avigdor Lieberman told Army Radio.
The foreign minister said Grapel's arrest was a "mistake, or bizarre behavior, on the part of the Egyptians" and said he hoped "this saga will end as soon as possible." Israel, he added, has sent clarifications to Egypt.
Grapel's family and friends say he is a law student in Atlanta with an avid interest in the Mideast — and not a Mossad agent out to sabotage Egypt's revolution, as Egyptian authorities claim.
Grapel, 27, was arrested Sunday at a hotel in Cairo, where he was working for a legal aid group.
His mother and a fellow student said he arrived in Cairo in May. Egypt says he came in mid-January, just before the protests that toppled longtime autocratic leader Hosni Mubarak began, and accuses him of inciting sedition, spreading rumors, and kindling frictions between protesters and the military that now rules the country.
Grapel was US-born and raised, but his family has Israeli roots and he holds dual American-Israeli citizenship. Like most Israeli citizens, he performed compulsory military service. He was wounded in Israel's 2006 war against Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon.
Grapel appears to have been traveling under his real name and made no secret of his Israeli links. His connections to Israel, including his past military service, are easy to find on the Internet, making it questionable that he was an agent of Israel's spy service.
Grapel's arrest has set off new fears in Israel that relations with Egypt will sour now that Mubarak has been deposed.
Since Mubarak's ouster, Egypt's military rulers have often warned against unspecified "foreign" attempts to destabilize the country. Egypt, like other Arab states, has a long history of blaming internal problems on Israeli saboteurs.
Reflecting the Egyptian interest, Grapel's case remained on the front pages of most Cairo newspapers Tuesday. Articles were accompanied by photographs of Grapel, including images of him in Arab headdress in front of a pyramid; at the Cairo square that was the epicenter of the revolt that toppled Mubarak; and in an Israeli military uniform.
The semi-official Al-Ahram published a photograph of him in a hospital bed after he was wounded in the Lebanon war. The paper said he entered Egypt for a few days in February, then returned in May. Al Ahram also reported that he tried to enter Libya from Egypt to visit rebel-held areas in the east, but did not say whether he went there or not.
