IN ONE of the most shocking arms trading scandals in Israeli history, a multi millionaire businessman was yesterday charged in a Tel Aviv court with helping Iran to manufacture nerve gas and mustard gas.
Mr Nahum Manbar, an Israeli arms dealer who grew up on a kibbutz hut has lived abroad for the past decade, was arrested on entering Israel six weeks ago, and held incommunicado for questioning for a full three weeks before the Israeli authorities admitted he was in their custody. Only parts of the charge sheet, filed against him at the Tel Aviv District Court were released yesterday.
According to the indictment, Mr Manbar fulfilled a 16 million (£10 million) contract with Iran between 1990 and 1994. This involved the supply of poison gas manufacturing equipment, assistance in setting up a poison gas factory, and the training of Iranian workers to operate the factory.
The charge sheet said the businessman met several times in Europe with Mr Magid Abasfur, identified in the indictment as head of the Iranian chemical warfare project" and had signed a contract with him.
Mr Manbar denied in a 1995 interview with the Israeli daily Ha'aretz that he had supplied Chinese made material to Iran for the manufacture of poison gas.
Ha'aretz said last month the US Central Intelligence Agency recently gave Israel information about Mr Manbar's purported connections with Iran and asked it to take action.
He faces a maximum sentence of life imprisonment if convicted on charges of aiding an enemy of Israel and harming state security. Israel has accused Islamic Iran of seeking its destruction.
Mr Manbar (51), whose business interests in Israel have included the ownership of various sports clubs and who has been on friendly terms with leading politicians, has denied all the charges.
His lawyer, Mr Amnon Zichroni, yesterday intimated that there might be considerably more to the affair than initially met the eye. Mr Zichroni noted that, from the charge sheet, it was clear that Israel's intelligence services had been monitoring Mr Manbar since at least 1992. If he was doing something wrong back then, asked Mr Zichroni, why was he not arrested at the time?
Although cases of Israelis spying for enemy nations are far from unheard of it is unusual indeed for an Israeli to be charged with assisting an enemy nation in the making of offensive weaponry.
That the nation in question in this case is Iran only deepens the gravity of the allegations since, with the possible exception of Syria, Iran is regarded in Israeli intelligence circles as potentially the greatest existential threat to the Jewish state - in much the same way as Iraq was feared during the 1980s.