- Ze'ev Barkan, the unaccounted for third man in the New
Zealand passport affair, served for a number of years as an Israeli diplomat,
media outlets in Australia and New Zealand reported Thursday.
-
- According to the reports, Barkan was attached to the
Israeli diplomatic mission in Austria between 1996 and 2002. He also held
diplomatic posts in Belgium.
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- Two Israelis, Elisha Cara and Uri Kelman, were convicted
by a New Zealand court and sentenced to six months for attempting to illegally
obtain a New Zealand passport. The two have appealed their sentence.
-
- Barkan, who is wanted by New Zealand authorities, is
suspected as having filed a request with that country's Interior Ministry
to issue a passport in the name of a handicapped boy.
-
- Media are quoting sources in the Australian Foreign Ministry,
who confirmed Barkan's diplomatic past.
-
- These reports strengthen the suspicions held by New Zealand's
government that the affair was related to an Israeli intelligence operation
gone awry.
-
- Barkan, who Israeli media describe as a resident of Shoham,
managed to flee New Zealand just before the arrest of Cara and Kelman who
remained in the country to wait for the passport.
-
- New Zealand's Dominion Times reported this week that
Barkan had used his Canadian passport to work for a humanitarian aid organization
in North Korea.
-
- New Zealand television reported that a short time after
the arrest of Cara and Kelman in Auckland in March, New Zealand's intelligence
agency called for a meeting with a senior Mossad official based in Singapore.
The Mossad official was asked to explain the affair and why Israeli agents
were operating in New Zealand territory.
-
- New Zealand media also quoted sources in the country's
intelligence agency who suspect the Mossad still has dormant agents in
New Zealand.
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