‘Senior Mossad man resigns over Zygi arrests’

A HIGH-RANKING operations officer in Israel’s Mossad has resigned following the arrest in Cyprus of two of its suspected agents, an Israeli paper reported yesterday.

Ha’aretz said that Mossad chief Efraim Halevy has accepted the resignation of the official, identified only as “Yud”, the Hebrew first letter of his name.

According to Reuters, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s spokesman had declined to comment on the report.

The Israelis suspected of spying against Cyprus were last week charged on three counts of espionage by the Larnaca court. Their trial begins on December 8. The suspects face ten years in jail if found guilty.

Udi Hargov, 37 and Ig’al Damari 49 were arrested on November 7. Police found sophisticated surveillance equipment in the apartment they were renting in Zygi.

Their presence in Cyprus coincided with major National Guard activities in the area.

The charges concern spying against the National Guard and the Cyprus Republic, not only in Zygi but also in other parts of the island between October 15 and November 6.

Zygi is the planned site for the island’s first ever naval base.

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.