ALBUQUERQUE JOURNAL
Friday morning, June 1, 1979
N.M. MAN, HELD AT ISRAEL BORDER, SAYS HE IS PILGRIM, NOT SPY
Arrows in Map Show Route of New Mexican Held In Israel
TEL AVIV Israel (UPI)-- A 28 year-old New Mexico man said
Thursday he swam across the Suez Canal from Egypt and walked over
90 miles of sand dunes in the Sinai Desert to make a pilgrimage
to Jerusalem, but was detained as a spy.
"I'm not a spy," William Thomas Hellenbeck told Judge Zvi
Nadiv in district court in the town of Ashkelon. "I'm not a
smuggler. I only wanted to make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem from
Egypt."
Hellenbeck, whose hometown was not disclosed, told the judge
he has attempted to make the pilgrimage by foot five other times
but was caught each time by the Egyptians and returned to Cairo.
This time he got further because 425 square miles of the
northern section of the peninsula were returned to Egyptian
control last week, along with the town of Al Arish.
"When I crossed the border, I looked for the Israeli border
police," Hellenbeck said "But in the Egyptian territory, I made
every effort not to meet people in uniform."
The U.S. Embassy said it was aware of his attempts to cross
the border by foot.
Hellenbeck told Israeli interrogators be swam across the
Suez Canal at Port Fuad, crossed about 90 miles of the Sinai
Desert by foot to Al Arish and then went down to the
Mediterranean beach to cross the new border with Israel.
A police prosecutor said in court Hellenbeck was picked up
by an Israeli Army patrol early Tuesday morning on the beach,
after he crossed the border. He was charged with illegally
crossing into Israel for suspicious purposes.
The judge ordered Hellenbeck detained for 11 days to permit
an investigation and told police officers to contact the U.S.
Embassy in Tel Aviv about the case.
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