Attorney-General Yehuda Weinstein on Monday announced the decision to shelve an
investigation into former Military Intelligence chief Eli Zeira for allegedly
exposing the late Egyptian businessman Ashraf Marwan as an Israeli
spy.
Weinstein said that following deliberations, he decided to close the
case in light of the complex circumstances surrounding it. He noted, however,
that the decision does not detract from the severity of the alleged
acts.
The implications of the case for senior civil service officials –
both while actively serving and after retiring – were considered, especially the
obligation not to reveal secrets, he added.
Former Mossad director Zvi
Zamir lodged a complaint against Zeira at the attorney-general’s office in
2010.
Zamir has long accused Zeira, who headed Military Intelligence
during the 1973 Yom Kippur War, of leaking Marwan’s alleged role as a spy to the
press.
In 2007, Marwan, aged 63 at the time, fell to his death from the
balcony of his London home. A coroner’s inquest was held to determine whether he
had died by suicide, accident or foul play.
In July 2010, a UK coroner
said the cause of Marwan’s death was inconclusive, but added that there was no
evidence to support either suicide or unlawful killing.
Marwan was the
son-in-law of former Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser and a trusted aide to
Nasser’s successor, Anwar Sadat.
Historians and intelligence agents have
accused Marwan of being an Israeli spy who passed on vital information before
the war – or, alternatively, of being a double agent loyal to
Egypt.
Marwan’s role as a supplier of intelligence – or disinformation –
to Israel resurfaced in the Israeli media in 2010 after the State Archive
released previously classified memos of emergency inner cabinet meetings prior
to and during the Yom Kippur War.
Marwan was decorated by the Egyptian
state for his role in the war.
His funeral in Cairo was attended by
high-profile mourners, including former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak’s son,
Gamal.
Yaakov Lappin contributed to this report.