- The Israeli foreign spy agency Mossad was behind the
1990 assassination in Brussels of a Canadian engineer who helped the South
African apartheid military develop its G5 155mm howitzer artillery cannon,
it was reported on Thursday.
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- Belgian police had known "for several weeks"
that Mossad was involved in the shooting on March 22 1990 of Gerald Bull,
the Canadian newspaper La Derniere Heure said.
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- Bull has also been implicated in Iraq's drive to build
a "supergun".
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- Bull aided the South African government in the development
of weapons during the war in Angola in the mid-70s, but his connection
with the country ultimately led to him spending six months in prison in
the United States on charges of arms dealing.
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- The bullet-riddled body of Bull, 62, was found in the
entrance hall of his Brussels home just before the Canadian was about to
furnish Iraq with a cannon capable of firing shells up to 1,500km, the
paper said.
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- Mossad was suspected at the time, along with the CIA
and Iranian intelligence, but the Belgian police investigation failed to
make any headway.
-
- But investigators had recently been given information
"originating from a former British possession in Central America"
- possibly Belize - that pointed the finger at a Mossad marksman, La Derniere
Heure quoted a prosecutor as saying.
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- The assassin had long been in possession of a jewel which
Bull always wore but which was missing from the engineer's body, the newspaper
said.
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- Bull's assassination coincided with the seizure of large
metal tubes in several countries, including Britain, Greece and Italy,
which were allegedly destined for the Iraqi supergun.
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- Bull helped Armscor develop the long-range 155mm howitzer
artillery cannon which South Africa used extensively during its war in
Angola, and also sold gun barrels and shells to the South African government.
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- According to his biographer, John Redford, Bull aided
South Africa with the "implicit" approval of the CIA, but when
Jimmy Carter was elected as president, relations between the two countries
soured.
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- On the advice of Bull's lawyer, according to Redford,
he pleaded guilty to charges of illegal arms dealings and spent six months
in prison in the United States in 1980.
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