26 More Suspects in Syrian-sponsored Spy Ring Remanded for Trial Next Month

Nine more suspects in the Syrian-sponsored espionage ring were brought to Haifa district court today and remanded for trial. Yesterday 17 defendants–four Jews and 13 Arabs–were brought into the same court and also remanded for trial. The latest 17 defendants will be tried separately from the six original suspects–two Jews and four Arabs–who entered pleas last Sunday for a trial scheduled to begin Feb. 25.

All 26 defendants remanded yesterday and today were charged either with membership in the spy ring or knowing of its activities but failing to inform the authorities. Their trial is scheduled to start on March 11. Among the four Jews brought to court yesterday were Rami Livneh, son of Rakah Knesseter Avraham Levenbrum, and Mali Lehrman, a new immigrant from Argentina. They were charged with meeting a foreign agent: Livneh in a forest near Nazareth, and Lehrman at his home in Tel Aviv.

The other two Jews are David Cooper, 26, of Holon, and Yehezkel Cohen, 30, of B’nai Brak. Cooper and Cohen were accused of membership in the ring and of failing to report a visit to Syria by Ehud Adiv, a 26-year-old paratroop veteran and former member of Kibbutz Gan Shmuel, who allegedly headed the ring’s Jewish section.

Adiv pleaded guilty last Sunday to charges he passed intelligence to Syrian agents in Lebanon and Syria and that he contacted a Syrian agent, Anis Kahawagi, in Greece, but pleaded not guilty to charges that he trained in Syria in the use of firearms and explosives.

REFUSE REQUEST FOR RELEASE ON BAIL

Cooper and Cohen were also charged with planning to go to Greece and from there to Syria for training in use of arms and explosives. Both failed to leave Israel, Cooper for undisclosed reasons and Cohen because he was arrested before he could leave. Cohen also was described by the prosecution as a man with extremist views who discussed with Adiv and Dan Vered the overthrow of the Israeli government and its replacement with a “dictatorship.”

The prosecution said Cohen met Adiv and Vered in the extreme left-wing Matzpen group. Vered, a 28-year-old teacher, refused to enter a plea last Sunday.

The prosecution said that the most important. Arab among the 13 Arabs brought to court yesterday was Jassan Akbariyeh, 22, of the Um EI Fahem village. The prosecution said he was the man with whom an El Fatah agent, Akhmed Khaldi. made the initial contact for the spy operation in 1970 and that Akbariyeh arranged for a meeting between Khalid and Adiv and between Khalid and Lehrman.

In remanding them to prison pending trial, the court stressed it could not grant a defense request for release on bail because the charges were “serious” and that the security of the state had been involved. The prosecution said that the Fatah agent proposed to Lehrman and Livneh that they smuggle weapons and explosives into Israel for sabotage acts. Livneh and Lehrman were accused of knowing that Khalid was an enemy agent and with refusing to report-on his activities to Israeli authorities.