Kidnapped Gaza engineer interrogated in Israel

Israel snatches Palestinian engineer from Ukraine to question him for possible 'information' on Shalit.

Middle East Online

By Jack Guez - PETAH TIKVAH

Kidnapped by Israeli agents posing as officers of the Ukrainian secret service A Gazan engineer who was snatched from Ukraine appeared on Thursday before an Israeli court as officials confirmed he was interrogated over the missing soldier Gilad Shalit. Dirar Abu Sisi, who disappeared while travelling on a train in Ukraine last month, appeared before Petah Tikvah Magistrates Court for a hearing at which the court extended his remand in custody and set April 4 as the date for his indictment. "The court extended the remand of my client by five days and should indict him on Monday morning," said his lawyer Smadar Ben-Natan. As he arrived at the courthouse, Abu Sisi said a few words in English, telling reporters: "I do not know anything about Gilad Shalit," before making other remarks in Arabic, which were relayed by his lawyer. "He declared his innocence and said he had been kidnapped in Ukraine. He also said that the allegations published about him were lies," she said. Sisi was referring to a report in Germany's Spiegel magazine which said Israeli agents had snatched him because they believed he had valuable information about the whereabouts of Shalit, an Israeli soldier abducted by Gaza militants in 2006. "He has no information about Gilad Shalit," Ben-Natan said. "It is very probable that this is the reason why he was taken, but it was a complete mistake as he has no such information." The 42-year-old engineer, who is the technical director at Gaza's sole electricity plant, is being held at Shikma prison in the southern port city of Ashkelon, although there is a gag order on details of his case. Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak on Thursday said that although Abu Sisi had no "direct" ties with Shalit, he had "intimate information" about his situation in an apparent confirmation that the engineer had been interrogated over the missing soldier. "We are not talking about a direct link (with Shalit)," Barak told public radio, there was no question that Abu Sisi had been involved in guarding the soldier or even in his capture. "But he is a man who has information -- intimate, internal information about what happens within Hamas, and it has value, not only with respect to Gilad Shalit but with regards to a lot of other things," he said, describing his arrest as "justified." Commenting on the case during a live Q&A session on YouTube late on Wednesday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu confirmed Abu Sisi belonged to the Islamist Hamas movement and had provided his interrogators with "useful information." "Abu Sisi is from Hamas, he is in custody in Israel, held legally in accordance with all the rules," Netanyahu said. "I don't want to comment on a connection with Gilad Shalit or anything else, I can only say that he has divulged useful information." Gaza militants captured Shalit in a cross-border raid into Israel in 2006. He remains captive somewhere in Gaza, and Hamas has demanded the release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners in return for freeing him. Abu Sisi, father of six and the husband of a Ukrainian woman, disappeared while travelling between Kiev and the eastern city of Kharkov on the night of February 18-19. His wife Veronica said train attendants told her that her husband had been taken away by two men posing as officers of the Ukrainian secret service. Earlier this year, Israel was accused by Tehran of being responsible for the kidnapping of a former deputy defence minister who went missing in Turkey in 2007. Ali Reza Asghari went missing after checking in to an Istanbul hotel in February 2007, with Israeli press reports suggesting he had been abducted by the Mossad spy agency. In January, various Israeli news website briefly reported that Asghari had committed suicide in an Israeli prison, but the reports were later removed.