Turkish citizens arrested in Istanbul on spying charges

Two Turkish citizens have been arrested in Istanbul on suspicion of having spied for more than a decade for Israel’s intelligence service, Turkish state media reported on Friday, cited by AFP.

A Turkish businessman and an accomplice of Palestinian origin are alleged to have been tasked by Mossad, Israel’s foreign intelligence agency, with gathering information on Palestinians hostile to Israel, according to the Anadolu news agency and TRT television, CE Report quotes AGERPRES.

The two suspects, currently in pretrial detention, are accused of approaching a member of the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas in Tunisia under the pretext of selling drone spare parts allegedly supplied by Mossad.

That Tunisian engineer, Mohamed Zouari, who specialized in drone development, was killed in December 2016 after being shot around 20 times while driving his car in Sfax, in east-central Tunisia. Hamas at the time accused Israel of carrying out the assassination.

According to TRT, one of the suspects had recently been involved in preparing a Mossad “logistical operation” in several countries.