A Belgian-Iranian man was sentenced to seven years in jail in Israel on Tuesday after being convicted of spying for Iran that included photographing the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv from his nearby hotel balcony.
A court in the central Israeli city of Lod said the information Ali Mansouri, 56, provided Tehran was of “limited value”.
He was arrested in Tel Aviv in 2013 and signed a plea bargain agreement last November.
According to court papers, Mansouri visited Israel three times to set up a business selling folding windows and pneumatic tools, an enterprise prosecutors said was intended to mask his intelligence gathering for Iran.
He was found to have photographed the U.S. Embassy along the Tel Aviv beachfront, Israel’s main international airport and a military installation that was not identified.
