An Israeli woman who was accused of spying for Iran attempted to end her life, KAN News reported on Thursday. The woman is in critical condition.
The investigation was carried out by the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) and Israel Police after it was suspected that a number of citizens were in contact with an Iranian intelligence agent known as Rambud Namdar, who recruited the Israelis to carry out missions within the country.
The suspects, four women and one man from the center of the country, met Namdar, who said on Facebook that he was a Jew living in Iran. According to the agency, Rambud requested from all suspects that instead of being in contact on Facebook, they should talk on WhatsApp, where he also video chatted.
"I told them everything. I didn't hide anything. Suddenly they put me in a 'gur' - a dungeon in Persian. A dark, gray room, 1.5 meters by 1.5 meters, a mattress on the floor."
Ifsana Mazlomian
Iranian spy ring
In May, one of the suspects in the case, a woman named Ifsana Mazlomian, told N12’s Uvda program that she had thought she was speaking to a Jewish Iranian in need of help when speaking with Namdar. Mazlomian explained how she was arrested by the Shin Bet, blindfolded and brought for interrogations.
“I told them everything. I didn’t hide anything. Suddenly they put me in a ‘gur’ – a dungeon in Persian. A dark, gray room, 1.5 meters by 1.5 meters, a mattress on the floor,” she said.
“Everything was closed. There were no windows. I cried, I said, ‘What am I going to be here? What am I going to do here? They explained to me, ‘This is what it is. This is where you are going to be.’ There was a faucet that would occasionally open by itself, suddenly in the middle of the night or in the middle of the day. I said to myself, maybe I’m crazy. Maybe I’m imagining it. Then I realized it was to make me crazy.”
The Shin Bet rejected Mazlomian’s version of events, saying, “The claims made in relation to Ifsana Mazlomian’s investigation are unfounded, and are intended to divert attention from the actions the accused performed in front of an Iranian intelligence agent, while she was suspicious of his identity and motives.”