22 Facts About Yosef Amit

Yosef Amit is a former Israeli military intelligence major who was convicted of espionage in 1987.

Yosef Amit was born in Kiryat Bialik in 1945 to Eliyahu and Tova Lizra.

Yosef Amit was conscripted into the Israel Defense Forces in 1963, serving in the Paratroopers Brigade, later transferring to the Israeli Navy and graduating from the Naval Officers' School in Acre.

Yosef Amit was wounded in a clash with Palestinian guerrillas on the Lebanese border in 1972.

Yosef Amit worked as a military intelligence officer from the Yom Kippur War until 1979.

Yosef Amit reached the rank of major, and was placed in command of a military intelligence base on the Lebanese border.

Yosef Amit served in Unit 504 of military intelligence, whose function was to operate agents in Arab countries.

Yosef Amit was discharged from the IDF, and spent three years in a psychiatric hospital.

Yosef Amit's wife, Tzila, was a physical education teacher at the Yavnieli school in Haifa.

Yosef Amit responded that he had a wish to make good money, and suggested that they do business together, to which he agreed.

Yosef Amit travelled to West Germany sometime later, where he met the officer, who introduced him to his "friends", who were in fact CIA officers from the US Embassy in Bonn.

Yosef Amit's handler was Tom Waltz, a Jewish CIA officer from the CIA station at the US embassy in Tel Aviv.

Yosef Amit was alleged to have passed classified information to an unidentified NATO country in Europe.

Yosef Amit was arrested in the parking lot of his Haifa apartment building on 24 March 1986.

Under questioning, Yosef Amit admitted that he had obtained the documents from a childhood friend who worked in Shin Bet, and had persuaded him to give him the documents on grounds that it would assist him in some private investigations.

Yosef Amit was sentenced to a three-month prison term and a one-year suspended sentence, and was fired from Shin Bet.

Yosef Amit served his sentence in Ayalon Prison, a maximum-security prison in Ramla.

However, when Yosef Amit heard of this, he sent a letter to the State Attorney's Office, stating that he had no desire to be any part of such an exchange, and claimed that his confession had been extracted illegally.

In 1990, while still in prison, Yosef Amit sued Yedioth Ahronoth and Maariv for libel over articles those papers had published in 1986 stating that an IDF intelligence major had been convicted of spying for Syria.

Yosef Amit dropped the suit in June 1993 after the papers agreed to publish corrections.

In October 1993, Yosef Amit was released from prison after serving two-thirds of his sentence.

Yosef Amit was paroled on grounds of good behavior, even though he had often violated prison regulations, and due to psychological considerations.