In the early morning of June 27, 2024, the Jewish student Elimelej Stern22, was arrested by officials from the Shin Bet, Israel’s internal security and intelligence service. They accused him of conspiring for Iran against the security of his country. On February 5, the Jerusalem District Court sentenced him to three years in prison.
It all started nine months earlier, when a person identified as “Anna Elena”22 years old, contacted the young man. She told him that she was a Canadian activist fighting against traffic accidents and asked for his help to “save lives in Israel.” He proposed carrying out some simple missions in exchange for cryptocurrency payments.
Stern dedicated himself to the study of the Talmud, the Torah and other rabbinical texts in a yeshivaa religious school. She belonged to the ultra-Orthodox Hasidic branch of Judaism, in which men must dedicate themselves to the study of the scriptures and women to take care of the house.
The ultra-Orthodox young man was married and the father of two small children. He lived with his family in a small rented apartment in Beit Shemeshnear Jerusalem, where he worked as a religious scribe for his community.
According to his own statements to the Police, he agreed to carry out the missions entrusted to him by Anna Elena because I had a debt of around 20,000 euros as a result of “poor financial management” and he needed the money.
At first they were simple assignments: pasting some posters with the image of some bloody hands and a text that said: “History will write that children were murdered.” Once the mission was completed, he had to send a photo or video and the alleged activist would transfer the cryptocurrencies to an account.
They communicated through Telegram with their own telephone, but as the complexity of the assigned work increased, their contact asked them to collect a smartphone in a certain place. This new device had pre-installed special applications that he should use in his communications.
Posters that were to be posted in the streets of Jerusalem.
Granted.
Another mission consisted of collecting small packages that contained money and leave some of it in other cities. Elimelej had to recruit young people he met online to carry out his assignments in Tel Aviv or Haifa.
The situation seemed extravagant when ‘Anna Elena’ asked him to leave a sheep head in a box of flowers in front of the home of the Israeli ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency. Since he couldn’t find it in the butcher shops in his town, she urged him to buy a sheep and decapitate it.
Although the reward for completing the strange mission was substantial, the ultra-Orthodox man refused. The plan was changed to leave a decapitated doll accompanied by a butcher knife in the indicated place. By then, Stern began to suspect the identity of his interlocutor.
Then he had to break shop windows during extremist demonstrations, set cars on fire, or cause a riot. fire in a nearby forest. For each burned car he charged 3,000 euros and for the forest action he would receive 7,000, but Stern refused to carry it out. That same day, ‘Anna Elena’ asked him if he would be willing to kill a person for 75,000 euros.
Elimelech rejected the offer. He concluded that the alleged activist was a impostor and thought she might be a radical anti-government troublemaker. He never imagined that, in reality, on the other side of the platform was an agent from the Iranian intelligence service.
Agents of the Seraj
He Serage is a ‘cyberspace’ professional organization dependent on the provincial units of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard of Iran (IRGC). It is your ‘digital armed arm’ and its objectives are to organize activism online pro-government, produce “appropriate content” and counter digital activities hostile to the regime.
It is part of the security and social control ecosystem of the IRGC and has been sanctioned by the European Union for its role in digital repression and information manipulation. Its agents are dedicated to locating dissidents in cyberspace and recruiting activists around the world.
Israeli media point out that 35 formal accusations have been documented involving nearly 60 defendants for espionage or collaboration after being captured on the networks by the Iranians. He Shaback and international agencies speak of hundreds of citizens contacted by automated calls or messages.
Stern’s arrest and trial
After his arrest, Stern recognized the facts that were attributed to him, but he assured that he did not know the identity of his interlocutor. He confessed that he was suspicious of the veracity of the information that had been conveyed to him, but noted that he never imagined that he was acting in favor of another power.
The interrogators asked him if he was willing to dishonor your community as a consequence of their actions. The ultra-Orthodox assured that he would never do anything that could harm those around him, but that he was not clear that what he had done could harm his country.
The detainee, in the police station.
Walla.
Stern’s lawyer based his strategy on the fact that his client had no way of knowing who his interlocutors were. Acted with ignorance absolute about the intentionality of his actions and argued that he acted for economic reasons.
It also influenced their limited knowledge of technology and digital media. Its religious branch only allows limited use of mobile phones and applications. That made him an easy target for enemy recruiters.
The judge who investigated the case, Chana Miriam Lompbased his guilty sentence on the fact that the accused made no efforts to unmask the identity of his interlocutor, even when he suspected her. The lack of knowledge of its source did not prevent the alleged events from being of great detriment to the security of the nation.
This Tuesday, the Prosecutor’s Office presented an appeal to the Supreme Court of the country to request an increase in the sentence to 7 years in prison. The petition is based on the fact that the national danger is of great magnitude and this case should serve as a lesson.
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