Syria said Saturday that a Syrian air force pilot who landed his MiG-23 fighter plane in Israel Wednesday was an Israeli spy.
A military statement said the pilot, whom it named as Bassam al-Adl, deceived Syrian front-line monitoring stations to fly to Israel by pretending that his plane had a mechanical fault.It said he "sold himself and his weapon to the enemy at the end of a spying mission led by Israeli intelligence, which mobilized this agent to smuggle a plane of our air force to hand it to the Israeli enemy."
The pilot, identified in Israel as Maj. Mohammed Bassem Adel, told a news conference near Tel Aviv Friday that he had defected but the Israelis had no prior knowledge he was coming.
The Syrian statement said he suggested by his movements that his plane had a technical fault when he changed direction toward Israel.
"Following checks it was proved that traitor Bassam al-Adl who fled with a MiG-23 on (Oct. 11) when he was on a training flight on the edge of the cease-fire frontline deceived front monitoring points," it said.
A senior Syrian official said earlier the MiG-23 made an emergency landing in Israel after developing a mechanical fault and Damascus had asked the International Committee of the Red Cross to arrange the return of the pilot.