Roi Mizrachi knew he was working for Iran, yet hid a bag with explosives near the home of the defense minister.
By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News
Roi Mizrachi, one of two Israelis arrested last month for spying for Iran for money, went as far as to attempt to assassinate Defense Minister Israel Katz, Channel 12 reported Sunday.
Driven allegedly by his need to pay off NIS2 million in gambling debts, Mizrachi agreed to first do simple tasks for “Alex,” who openly identified as a member of Iranian intelligence when he contacted the Technion computers student on Telegram just hours after Mizrachi had joined a partner-swapping sex group in March, the suspect told his interrogators upon his arrest the next month.
The report said that he was initially told to install cameras around his hometown of Nesher, purchase cellphones, and move cash hidden in a public park in Haifa to somewhere else, getting paid each time in cryptocurrency.
He then roped in his childhood friend, Attias, who was also deep in debt for gambling.
In his own confession to the authorities, Attias said that he had joined in because Mizrachi had told him that “in a month or two I could get out of debt and start a new life,” but claimed that he had done very little in comparison to Mizrachi.
Attias said that his friend had filmed strategic locations that the Iranians would want to destroy, such as the Azrieli Towers in Tel Aviv and Israeli Security Agency (Shabak) facilities.
Mizrachi then bought two special spy cameras that the Iranians could control remotely in real time and was told to plant them in specific places in Kfar Ahim, where Katz lived.
He understood the significance of the location, he told his questioners, and went there anyway with Attias, but they were scared off by a passing security vehicle.
“Alex” then asked if he would be willing to kill a scientist in the Weizmann Institute for a million dollars, and the 24-year-old agreed.
However, when he said he’d need half of the money up front, his handler demurred, saying he had once been burned this way when someone took the advance and then disappeared.
“Alex” then cut off the relationship, the report said, so Mizrachi went back to the sex site to get “hooked” again.
An agent called “Guest” contacted him in due course – and upped the ante considerably.
Sending him the exact location by cellphone, he asked Mizrachi to dig up a backpack with a powerful explosive device hidden in a forest, and bring it to a location near Katz’s home, said the report, although he claimed that it was drugs, not a bomb.
Mizrachi opened the bag and discovered the explosive, yet planted it anyway where he had been told.
When asked why he did this knowing that the Iranians wanted to assassinate Israel’s defense minister, he said that the agent had threatened to send his picture and proof of his actions “to the Shabak” and he was afraid to say no.
According to the police, this was a credible attempt on Katz’s life, and combined with his other actions, led them to charge Mizrachi with one of the most serious crimes in Israeli law, that of “aiding the enemy in a time of war.”
If convicted, Mizrachi could even be potentially sentenced to death.
The chances are far higher that he will receive a stiff prison sentence, as the only person ever put to death by the State of Israel was Holocaust architect Adolf Eichmann.
Attias was charged with the lesser crime of “contact with a foreign agent.”
Mizrachi’s lawyer minimized his client’s actions to the media, saying that he was “a stupid kid who performed technical operations that didn’t harm the security of the state even the tiniest bit.”
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