Jerusalem – An alleged Israeli spy arrested in Egypt is an American immigrant to Israel who once wrote that he hoped to promote Israeli policies in the Arab world, according to information he and others provided on websites.
The man, detained on Sunday in a development that could strain Israel's relations with Egypt's new leaders, was identified by the Egyptian MENA news agency as Ilan Chaim Grabel, a misspelling of his family name, Grapel.
The Israeli ambassador to Cairo said on Monday that Israel was looking into the case. The US embassy in the Egyptian capital said it was working to confirm Grapel's identity and citizenship.
In his Facebook page, Grapel made no secret of his presence in Egypt, writing that he was "preaching at al-Azhar," an Islamic university in Cairo, and that he had studied at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland. The reference to Al-Azhar later disappeared from the page.
A judiciary source in Egypt said the arrested man had been active in Cairo's Tahrir Square, the epicentre of the revolt against Hosni Mubarak, after the former president stepped down.
A statement issued by Egypt's public prosecutor said the suspect, ordered held for 15 days, had been sent to Egypt to recruit agents "trying to gather information and data and to monitor the events of the January 25 revolution."
Photographs of Grapel on the Facebook page, on the website of the Israel Project, a pro-Israel group where he trained in media relations in 2008, and in the on-line newsletter of an organization that raises funds for Israeli soldiers, matched those in a video clip of the suspect released by Egypt.
