A New Zealand court has sentenced two Israeli men for attempting to fraudulently obtain a New Zealand passport. This case has precipitated a major thaw in Israeli-New Zealand relations, with the New Zealand government claiming the men were Mossad agents, and slapping sanctions on Israel.
Earlier this mornng (Thursday) an Auckland court sentenced the two men Uri Kelman, 30, and Eli Kra, 50, to six months jail, after they pleaded guilty. They were also ordered to pay $50,000 to the Cerebral Palsy Society of New Zealand. THey were convicted of attempting to fraudulently obtaina New Zealand passport by borrowing the identity of a CP-handicapped manís passport. The men’s lawyers denied claims the men had any link to Mossad.
Shortly after the verdict, New Zealandís Prime Minister Helen Clark made a statement strongly condemning Israel. She also announced a de-facto suspension of diplomatic relations with Israel, saying that the accreditation visit of the new Israeli ambassador to Wellington would be “indefinitely postponed”.
Other diplomatic measures taken by New Zealand Among include suspension of high-level visits to and from Israel and requiring a visa application from any Israelis visiting New Zealand in any official government capacity. Clark also said that President Moshe Katsav, who was due to visit the country in August as part of his scheduled trip to Australia, would not be a desirable guest at this time.
In her statment, she said that there were “very strong reasons” to believe the two men were acting on behalf of Israel’s intelligence services.
You mean like the fact that one of the men turned up to court like this?
(AP)
I think the Mossad are losing the plot.
Update: And further sloppiness:
In April, the New Zealand Herald reported that senior government officials believed that Kelman and Kra, who claimed to be Sydney-based travel agents, were Mossad operatives. Their attorney, Advocate Grant Illingworth, has denied these allegations.
Foreign intelligence sources have said that their cover was blown by their accents. According to these sources, the man who passed himself off as a New Zealand cirtizen sounded “more Yank than Kiwi”, thus arousing suspicion.
Update: And on the topic of sloppiness, the above extracts from Maariv, replete with spelling and grammatical errors, are exactly how they appeared online.
