Shimon Levinson

Shimon Levinson (שמעון לוינזון, also written לביא, Lavi) was an Israeli reserve colonel, born in Jerusalem in 1933, who served in Military Intelligence, the Shin Bet and the Mossad and was convicted of spying for the KGB. The Shin Bet published its account of the case in November 2009.¹

Military and intelligence career

Levinson enlisted in the Israel Defense Forces in 1950. The Shin Bet account lists service as a clerk on the Israel-Jordan Armistice Commission, in the IDF attache office in Turkey, again on the Armistice Commission from 1960 as coordinator between Military Intelligence and the Jordanian army, and as head of a documentation section in Military Intelligence collection. He left regular service over lack of promotion, was general manager of the Government Company for Medals and Coins for about a year, and resigned under pressure after filing a false complaint of corruption in the company.¹

The Shin Bet recruited him in 1963 to lead a security vetting team in Jerusalem. In 1965 he transferred at his own request to the Mossad, where he did reliability checks until March 1967. After the Armistice Commission was abolished in July 1967 he joined the Israeli liaison apparatus to the United Nations and commanded the UN liaison unit until 1970.¹

He then returned to the Mossad's Foreign Relations Division and for two years headed a branch abroad. Haaretz gives the posting as head of the Mossad's Tevel station in Ethiopia, in charge of the secret military aid Israel gave the army of Emperor Haile Selassie against Eritrean rebels. He was recalled over a security incident and served as special assistant to the head of the Mossad's Special Relations Department until 1973.¹²

In July 1973 he returned to regular IDF service as a UN liaison officer with the rank of colonel, and retired in August 1978. Haaretz attributes the retirement to his frustration at the refusal of chief of staff Rafael Eitan to promote him further.¹² The Jewish Telegraphic Agency reported in 1993 that he left the IDF in 1983.³

United Nations in Thailand and the KGB

In 1979 he was appointed through his UN connections to lead the anti-drug effort in Thailand, a post he held until June 1983.¹ In April 1983 he entered the Soviet embassy in Bangkok and offered his services. The Shin Bet account says the KGB recruited and ran him until his arrest in May 1991, through meetings in Europe and Moscow, secret writing, radio broadcasts and dead drops. He said in interrogation that financial difficulty motivated him, and that he received $31,000 over seven years from the KGB.¹² The Mossad rejected his 1984 application to return.¹

In May 1985 the director general of the Prime Minister's Office, Avraham Tamir, appointed him chief security officer of the Prime Minister's Office; Haaretz reported that Shimon Peres, then prime minister, was among those who recommended him. He left in December 1985 after criticism of his performance.¹² The Shin Bet account lists as material passed to the KGB the structure and unit heads of the Israeli intelligence community (Military Intelligence, Mossad, Shin Bet, the police special operations unit and Nativ), the structure of the Prime Minister's Office, Foreign Ministry documents, and the names and roles of American intelligence officers in contact with Israeli intelligence.¹²

Arrest, trial and release

Levinson was lured back from abroad and arrested at Ben Gurion Airport in May 1991. Haaretz reported that the arrest followed information that reached the Mossad from a foreign source, passed by Mossad director Shabtai Shavit to Shin Bet director Jacob Perry, and that the investigation was code-named Eshel Hamidbar.² The Jewish Telegraphic Agency reported on September 9, 1993 that a district court had the previous week sentenced Levinson, 60, to 12 years for "serious espionage," in a trial that began in May 1991 and from which details were withheld from publication.³

According to Haaretz, Ariel Sharon and Rafi Eitan testified on his behalf at trial. The Shin Bet account says he shared a cell with Marcus Klingberg and was released in 1999 after a third of his sentence was deducted; his wife divorced him and he was expelled from the retired officers' association. Haaretz reported that he moved to Thailand in 2003 and worked there as an agricultural consultant.¹²

Name Lavi and Ben-Menashe's Lt. Col. Shimon Lavee

Ari Ben-Menashe names a Lt. Col. Shimon Lavee as head of the Special Assistance Branch of the IDF Military Intelligence External Relations Department who prepared the Israeli text of the SIMWA agreement with South Africa. The sources on Levinson do not place him in the External Relations Department or in a branch named SIM, give his rank as colonel, and place him in Thailand from 1979. No source located establishes whether he is the Shimon Lavee named by Ben-Menashe.¹²