CAIRO, Feb 5: Egypt asked the international police organisation Interpol on Monday to arrest three Israelis it accuses of being part of a spy ring, judicial and security sources said.

“Egypt officially requests that Interpol arrest the three missing Mossad agents involved in the spy affair so that they can be tried together with Egyptian Mohammed Essam Ghoneim al-Attar,” said a justice official.

Security officials in Egypt, which signed a peace treaty with the Jewish state in 1979, confirmed the request.

The government announced on Saturday that it was charging Attar with conspiring to “harm Egypt's national interests” following his alleged recruitment by three Israelis while visiting Turkey in 2001 to spy on the Egyptian community abroad.

Israel confirmed it was the subject of espionage allegations in Egypt but could not add to the bare details reported in the media.

According to prosecutors with the Emergency State Security Court the 24-year-old former Al-Azhar student travelled to Turkey in 2001 and then offered his services to the Israeli embassy there.—AFP