Relations between Israel and its oldest Arab ally, Egypt, took a turn for the worse yesterday when a court in Cairo sentenced an Israeli, Azam Azam, to 15 years in prison with hard labour on charges of spying for the Jewish state. Azam's Egyptian counterpart, Emad Abdel Hamid Ismail, and two Israeli women, Zahra Youssef Greiss and Mona Ahmed Shawahna, all received life sentences on the same charges. The two women, who were tried in absentia, remain at large.
The Israeli government reacted angrily to the verdict, calling it "an outrage". "Azam Azam is innocent. He does not deserve to spend one day in jail," Mr David Bar-Illan, aide to the Israeli Prime Minister, Mr Benjamin Netanyahu, said.
"Last week the prime minister called President Mubarak and asked him to use his influence to get Azam out of jail. He is going to do so again."
It is unlikely that Mr Netanyahu will be able to help. His first of many attempts to intervene in the case came soon after Azam's arrest last November and received a public rebuke from Mr Mubarak, who accused the Israeli leadership of complicating the affair, adding that he could do nothing because the case was before the courts.
Azam and Ismail worked together in an Israeli-owned textile factory in Egypt and state prosecutors alleged that with the help of the two women, Azam, a member of Israel's Druze minority, convinced the 24-year-old Egyptian to provide information on Egypt's industrial cities to the Israeli security agency, Mossad.
The case caused a sensation in Egypt, not least because the prosecution's evidence included women's underwear, supposedly inscribed with invisible ink, and allegations of a steamy love affair between Ismail and one of the Israeli women.
It also became a focus of popular anger against the Israeli government. Lawyers defending the accused were branded traitors by their colleagues and at one point during the four month-long trial the courtroom was reduced to chaos as lawyers traded punches and shouted insults about the Israeli prime minister.
Israeli government officials have been careful to avoid accusations of a political aspect to yesterday's verdict but the two men's Egyptian defence lawyers said their clients were victims of poor Arab-Israeli relations.
Ismail's lawyer, Mr Ahmed Bakr, said he would appeal the verdict, while Azam's relatives, who said earlier yesterday they expected an acquittal, plan to appeal to President Mubarak for a reduction in the sentence.
In Damascus, the Syrian President, Mr Harez al-Assad, held talks yesterday with the EU envoy to the Middle East, Mr Miguel Angel Moratinos, ahead of a tour of the region by the US Secretary of State, Ms Madeleine Albright.
Mr Moratinos said after the meeting: "We hope that the tour by Mrs Albright in the Middle East will achieve a big step on the road to peace."
Israel released from administrative detention yesterday a former member of the radical group, Islamic Jihad, so he could donate a kidney to his ailing son, a military spokesman said.
"We decided to free Omar Osman before the end of his administrative detention . . . in an unusual move for humanitarian reasons after he signed an agreement not to participate in enemy activities," the spokesman said.
The father of 11, from the Jelazoon refugee camp near the West Bank town of Ramallah, was arrested in March 1996 after four suicide bombings by Islamic radicals killed more than 60 people in Israel.
He had since been held without trial under the Israeli military's administrative detention statutes, which permit the jailing of persons suspected of endangering state security.