Authorities in Egypt have charged an Irishman over his alleged role in an international spy ring in which information from an Egyptian nuclear worker was being supplied to the Israelis.
The Irishman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, has been charged in his absence following the arrest last month of Mohamed Sayed Saber Ali, a 35-year-old Egyptian who works for his country's Atomic Energy Agency.
Mr Ali was arrested after he returned to Egypt from Hong Kong, where he is alleged to have met the Irish national and a Japanese man, who are described as agents of Israel's Mossad spy agency.
Mr Ali has allegedly told the authorities in Egypt that the two men approached him and offered to pay him a monthly fee if he agreed to go back to work for the atomic agency, after a career break, and pass research information on to them for the Israelis.
Mr Ali, who is in custody in Egypt and was allegedly paid $17,000, has now been charged with spying for Israel.
His Irish and Japanese co-accused have been charged in their absence. It is unclear where they are.
A spokesman for the Department of Foreign Affairs in Dublin last night confirmed there were no Irish nationals in custody in Egypt in connection with the alleged Israeli spy ring. "The Irish Embassy in Cairo is currently in contact with the Egyptian authorities regarding this case," the statement said. "It appears that an Egyptian citizen has been arrested and has alleged involvement in possible espionage of non-Egyptian nationals, including what may or may not, from his account, be an Irish national living outside Egypt.
"No further information is available at this stage."
The Irish Times understands the Egyptian authorities believe e-mails they have found support their theory that the Irishman was involved in the purchase of confidential information about Egypt's nuclear capabilities.
A spokesman for the Egyptian Public Prosecutor's Office, Hesham Badawi, told a Cairo press conference that Mr Ali graduated from Alexandria University in 1994 with a bachelor's degree in nuclear engineering and obtained a diploma in nuclear reactor physics from Cairo University in 1999. He got a job at the Atomic Energy Agency in 1997 and, unusually, went to the Israeli embassy in Cairo in May 1999 to ask for a grant to study nuclear engineering at Tel Aviv University.
It is alleged that Mr Ali met with his two co-accused on numerous occasions in Hong Kong in recent months. Reports suggest that at a meeting in December 2006, Mr Ali gave the Irishman documents containing secret information about the Atomic Energy Agency and the nuclear reactor at Inshas.
Egypt's reactors are under International Atomic Energy Agency supervision, which has no serious complaints about Egyptian compliance with the nuclear non-proliferation treaty.
Egypt dropped plans for nuclear power stations in the 1980s but the government last year announced plans to reconsider nuclear power as an alternative to fossil fuels. - (Additional reporting Reuters)