The seriousness of the charges faced by four Mobinil employees is unclear, reports Ahmed Kotb Last week the commercial court postponed to March 11 the trial of four Mobinil employees accused of illegally facilitating international phone calls. The case, in which Mobinil's chief executive officer is one of the four defendants, was transferred to the commercial court by the Supreme State Security Emergency Prosecution following a separate investigation into the activities of Bashar Abu Zeid, the Jordanian engineer currently facing trial on charges of spying for Israel. The prosecution has alleged that Abu Zeid was employed by Mobinil, something the telecommunications company denies. Telecom Egypt (TE) is petitioning for temporary compensation of LE10,001 for losses suffered as a result of Mobinil's illegal transmission of calls, though TE estimates its total losses could amount to more than LE240,000. Abu Zeid was arrested in early 2011. He is accused of using communication networks across Egypt to access phone calls made by Egyptian officials. The information thus obtained was allegedly passed to Israel. Mobinil was implicated in the case when investigators began to question its construction of a 70-metre high communications tower in Owja, two kilometres away from the Egyptian- Israeli border, which they believe was enabled to transfer Internet-based international phone calls (VOIP) to a nearby Israeli military base. A detailed report prepared for the trial claims the tower, which exceeds the legal height of 12 metres in deserted areas, has powerful antennae that cannot be justified by the sparse population it serves. Built in 2006, the tower is suspected of illegally transferring calls to the military base on the Israeli side of the border. Reports have appeared in the media claiming the National Telecom Regulatory Authority several times asked Mobinil to implement procedures that would ensure that coverage did not extend across the border but the company failed to take any action. Investigators say they have uncovered evidence that one million minutes of international phone calls were transmitted to Israel every month through the Owja towers antennae. Mobinil denies that any of its employees are involved in the espionage case. Mobinil, which has reached an accord recently with France Telecom (FT) to buy 95 per cent of the Egyptian company's stake claims all necessary legal permissions were obtained prior to the construction of the Owja communications tower. The four Mobinil employees face charges of helping transmit phone calls to Israel without a licence and of allowing Abu Zeid to install eavesdropping equipment. It remains unclear, however, whether the four will ultimately face charges of espionage. "This lack of clarity is very odd," says Ayman Abdel-Meguid, professor of civil law at Cairo University. "If they are charged with illegally transmitting calls to Israel then they should be tried in the Supreme State Security Emergency Court."
