The State Attorney's Office filed an indictment today (Monday) in the Jerusalem District Court against Tarek Avideh, a 53-year-old Jerusalem resident, for contact with a foreign agent - after he had been in contact for about a year with a person who acted on behalf of a foreign country or terrorist organization and offered to carry out photography and information-gathering missions in Jerusalem.
The prosecution is asking the court to order Avidah's arrest until the end of the legal proceedings against him.
According to the indictment, filed through Attorney Hadar Rubinstein of the Jerusalem District Attorney's Office, about a year ago, Avida sent a request to join a Telegram group called "The Resistance," in which the foreign agent was active. The two corresponded about once every two weeks, and during the conversation, the agent asked Avida to take photographs of various places in Jerusalem for money, including Jewish residential neighborhoods and locations of security forces and the police.
At the agent's request, Avid downloaded a dedicated app to his phone that was designed to allow the two to correspond securely and encrypted.
The agent then asked Awida if he could install a camera on his electric bike and take pictures during his travels without attracting attention. Awida stated that he was in the area of the Al-Aqsa Mosque.
On another occasion, he agreed to the agent's request to install a camera on his bicycle and photograph a mosque, but in fact did not carry out the task.
A few days before his arrest, the agent contacted him again and asked him to take photographs in the Al-Aqsa Mosque area or in other areas that might help them, but Awida did not respond and did not carry out the task.
The indictment accuses Avida of contacting a foreign agent.
