CAIRO, April 24 (UPI) -- An Israeli Bedouin incarcerated in Egypt on suspicion of spying for Israel said he is conducting a hunger strike to win release.
Ouda Tarabin, 32, said his decision is a protest against the lack of action by Israel and Egypt to secure his freedom, Israel Radio reported.
"Israel has not done enough to secure my release even though I was innocent," he said in a letter to Israeli Ambassador to Egypt Yaakov Amitai. "I ask the honorable sir, by virtue of his being an ambassador [of] the state of Israel and the prime minister's representative in Egypt, to pass this information of my hunger strike to [Israeli] Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and to Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi," Ynetnews.com said.
Ouda was arrested by the Egyptian authorities in 2000 after he allegedly illegally crossed the border. He was tried in absentia on charges of spying for Israel by an Egyptian military court and he had been sentenced to 15 years when he was arrested.
Tarabin was 10 years old when his family moved from Egypt to Israel where he was granted Israeli citizenship.
"All Egypt must do is release Ouda Tarabin without delay in accordance with the resolution of the United Nations Human Rights Council's Working Group on Arbitrary Detention in Geneva," Israeli lawyer Yitzhak Meltzer, who represents Tarabin, told Ynetnews.com.
