CAIRO: An Iranian diplomat working at the Iran mission in Cairo was detained on Saturday, security sources told Bikya Masr. The diplomat, Qassem Hosseini, was taken in for questioning after a tip-off led investigators to the Iranian diplomat's villa in Maadi. Early reports said that Hosseini was being held for “passing information” from the mission in Cairo back to his headquarters in Tehran. Security sources confirmed that Hosseini was arrested and interrogated. “The state security prosecutor detained and questioned Qassem Hosseini after the Foreign Ministry confirmed he is an Iranian diplomat,” Aly Hassan, a judicial analyst with the justice ministry said. The Egyptian Supreme State Security Court prosecutor, Taher El Khouli, accused Hosseini of attempting to organize an espionage network in Egypt while working at the Iranian mission in Cairo. The Iranian diplomat is being called an “undercover operative” by the prosecutor, who also said that investigators found spying devices in his home, which are banned in Egypt. The prosecutor's office reported that Qassem Hosseini became active in collecting intelligence during the 18-day revolution which ousted Egypt's president and authoritarian regime from power. The diplomat “took advantage of the security vacuum” surrounding the uprising, El Khouli told reporters. Egyptian investigators followed Hosseini for several weeks and found that he had violated diplomatic procedure and protocols. The justice ministry spokesperson told Bikya Masr's correspondent in Maadi on Sunday that the Iranian diplomat had been released and was given 48 hours to depart from Egypt by his own accord. When asked what measures would be taken to investigate others working in the Iranian mission the spokesperson would not comment. Both the Iranian interests section in Cairo and Tehran have denied that the diplomat was arrested. An official at the Iranian mission said that Hosseini was at the mission office on Sunday. ”He is in the embassy even as we speak. It did not happen the way it was reported, he was not arrested,” the diplomatic spokesperson told reporters by phone. The Iranian Students' News Agency (ISNA), an official news organization of the Islamic Republic of Iran, reported early Monday morning that Iranian Intelligence Minister Heidar Moslehi told reporters in Tehran that the Egyptian authorities have apologized for wrongly arresting their diplomat, Qassem Hosseini. The Iranians at first denied that Hosseini was part of the diplomatic team in Egypt and then confirmed his affiliation but denied he had been arrested. The Egyptian prosecutor's office denied apologizing for the detention of Hosseini when reached by phone this morning. Diplomatic ties between Egypt and Iran have been severed since Iran's Islamic revolution in 1979 – after which the Shah of Iran was received along with his family in Egypt after going into exile. While diplomacy is strained between the governments, each maintains a mission in the other's capital. The office of Egypt's Foreign Minister Nabil Elaraby has not commented on the arrest of the Iranian diplomat. Elaraby had said in April, after meeting a top Iranian official in Cairo, that Egypt was open to re-establishing diplomatic relations. The detention of Hosseini could lead to new setbacks in Egypt's attempt at improving relations with Iran. In late April of this year, Kuwait and Bahrain expelled several Iranian diplomats after a court verdict in Kuwait linked Iranian diplomats with a spy ring operating in Kuwait. The diplomats were accused of having direct connections with the espionage network while also reporting back to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. Updated from original article which appeared in Bikya Masr on Sunday, May 29, 2011.
