A British judge denied bail on Friday to a couple wanted by Israel for alleged involvement in the country's biggest business scandal in decades -- an alleged high-tech industrial spying ring.
District Judge Anthony Evans ordered Michael and Ruth Haephrati held without bail until the next hearing in their case, which he scheduled for July 1. Israel is seeking to extradite the pair.
They did not speak during the hearing at Bow Street Magistrates Court, only nodding to confirm their dates of birth.
The Haephratis' defense lawyer had said it was unnecessary to hold them without bail, since they had given up their travel documents. He said they had not seen one another or their daughter, who is being cared for by relatives, since their arrest last week.
Prosecutor John Hardy, acting for the Israeli government, said detention was necessary because Israel would not be able to extradite Michael Haephrati, who is German, if he flees to Germany.
Because the couple's alleged crimes were committed in cyberspace, Hardy said, "they could go anywhere in the world" and continue those activities.
The Haephratis are at the center of a scandal that has shaken Israel's business world. Top Israeli blue-chip companies are suspected of using illicit surveillance software to steal information from their rivals and enemies. Alleged victims include the local operations of the Ace hardware chain and Hewlett-Packard Co.
Police said more than 20 people had been arrested.
Israeli investigators believe Michael Haephrati, 41, designed the spying program and sold customized copies to three Israeli private investigators.
The private investigators allegedly then sneaked the program into the computers of their clients' major competitors via seemingly benign e-mail attachments.
The case is attracting the attention of top security software makers. Software firms in the US have been updating their products to defend against similar outbreaks.
BUSINESS UPDATE: The iPhone assembler said operations outlook is expected to show quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year growth for the second quarter Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday reported strong growth in sales last month, potentially raising expectations for iPhone sales while artificial intelligence (AI)-related business booms. The company, which assembles the majority of Apple Inc’s smartphones, reported a 19.03 percent rise in monthly sales to NT$510.9 billion (US$15.78 billion), from NT$429.22 billion in the same period last year. On a monthly basis, sales rose 14.16 percent, it said. The company in a statement said that last month’s revenue was a record-breaking April performance. Hon Hai, known also as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), assembles most iPhones, but the company is diversifying its business to
Apple Inc has been developing a homegrown chip to run artificial intelligence (AI) tools in data centers, although it is unclear if the semiconductor would ever be deployed, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday. The effort would build on Apple’s previous efforts to make in-house chips, which run in its iPhones, Macs and other devices, according to the Journal, which cited unidentified people familiar with the matter. The server project is code-named ACDC (Apple Chips in Data Center) within the company, aiming to utilize Apple’s expertise in chip design for the company’s server infrastructure, the newspaper said. While this initiative has been
GlobalWafers Co (環球晶圓), the world’s No. 3 silicon wafer supplier, yesterday said that revenue would rise moderately in the second half of this year, driven primarily by robust demand for advanced wafers used in high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips, a key component of artificial intelligence (AI) technology. “The first quarter is the lowest point of this cycle. The second half will be better than the first for the whole semiconductor industry and for GlobalWafers,” chairwoman Doris Hsu (徐秀蘭) said during an online investors’ conference. “HBM would definitely be the key growth driver in the second half,” Hsu said. “That is our big hope
The consumer price index (CPI) last month eased to 1.95 percent, below the central bank’s 2 percent target, as food and entertainment cost increases decelerated, helped by stable egg prices, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday. The slowdown bucked predictions by policymakers and academics that inflationary pressures would build up following double-digit electricity rate hikes on April 1. “The latest CPI data came after the cost of eating out and rent grew moderately amid mixed international raw material prices,” DGBAS official Tsao Chih-hung (曹志弘) told a news conference in Taipei. The central bank in March raised interest rates by