Auckland, New Zealand, Saturday, July 3,
2004 The spies who
stole my name By BRIDGET CARTER, EUGENE BINGHAM and PHIL
TAYLOR AN Auckland family have told how
their tetraplegic son's identity was stolen by an
Israeli secret agent who moved in just down the
road. Zev Barkan, who has fled New Zealand and
escaped the justice faced yesterday by his two
co-accused spies, lived within 300m of the man in
whose name he applied for a passport to assume a
New Zealand identity. "Barkan lived in the street next door to where
[the victim] was living," said his father,
speaking exclusively to the Weekend
Herald. "He must have been able to see all these
handicapped people going around in wheelchairs. I
don't know if that is relevant or coincidence." The story of the handicapped man caught up in
the spy story emerged yesterday after two men
pleaded guilty to a charge of trying to obtain a
false New Zealand passport. Urie Kelman and Eli Cara were
remanded in custody and will be sentenced on July
15. Mystery still surrounds how the spies selected
their victim, who lives in care. The family -- whose identity is suppressed --
were drawn into the world of international intrigue
when a Department of Internal Affairs officer,
Ian Tingey, rang them in March asking if
their son had applied for a passport and had travel
plans. The victim, who is his 30s and has cerebral
palsy due to brain damage at birth, is in no state
to do either. "[My son] is
quite intelligent, he just can't speak, can't
toilet or feed himself," said the father. "He is
a person in his own right. He lives in his own
world and most of it is in his head -- he can't
talk to you and me. "He has a fully operational brain -- he was
writing plays when he was about 11 or 12." He communicates by using a device with a
protruding connection which is attached to his
head. He uses it to tap onto a computer pad and can
thereby slowly type. Mr Tingey became suspicious about a passport
application made in the victim's name after a phone
call from a well-spoken man who claimed to be the
applicant and was seeking to speed up the
process. The caller faxed through a travel itinerary and
ticketing information to help the process. But Mr
Tingey had noted the caller had what he thought was
an underlying Canadian or American accent. On March 19, Mr Tingey contacted the victim's
father and was told the applicant could not be his
son. "When we first heard about it, we thought
goodness gracious, how outrageous," said the
father. "How the hell have they got hold of our
details?" The victim himself treats it in a minor way, his
father said. When Barkan applied for the passport, he used
the victim's birth certificate, which had been
applied for using the victim's mother's name. She is no longer
married to the victim's father and has lived in
Britain for two years working with cerebral
palsy victims. "They used her married name, which she hasn't
used for God knows how long, and they also used her
middle name, which she has never answered to," said
the father. The mother flew out from Britain to see
if she could help with police inquiries, but there
was nothing she could add as to why her son was
selected. "It's great the police have caught these guys
but it still doesn't answer the questions of how
and why they targeted him," said the father. 
WHEN Internal Affairs informed the police about its
suspicions, a covert operation began.
Detectives uncovered details of four people,
their movements in and out of the country, where
they stayed, cars they rented. The men were Kelman, Cara, Barkan and a fourth
person, whose identity police have not
discovered. The police summary of
facts lists the occupations of the three as
unknown, but senior Government figures believe
they are agents for Mossad, Israel's secret
service. The guilty plea came suddenly, after a
fast-tracked depositions hearing and extraordinary
efforts by Kelman to avoid being photographed by
the media. Kelman and Cara claimed not to know each other
or Barkan but police say inquiries reveal
otherwise. There were calls made between cellphones found
in the possession of Kelman and Cara, and keys to a
car rented by Barkan were found in Kelman's
possession. The defendants have claimed they met Barkan by
chance and were merely good Samaritans helping
someone. They initially denied knowing there was
anything illegal in what they or Barkan did. Soon after beginning inquiries, police learned
that Cara particularly was a regular visitor to New
Zealand, having travelled here 24 times between
October 2000 and March 2004. He used two Israeli
passports, the second a replacement. Cara claimed to be a travel agent and to operate
a Sydney travel agency. But inquiries by the
Weekend Herald indicate it does not exist --
or if it does, it operated illegally. Barkan appears to have come to New Zealand with
the purpose of illegally obtaining a New Zealand
passport using an assumed identity. He first came here, according to the police
summary of facts, in November 2003, travelling on a
United States passport which identified him as an
Israeli. Later that month, Barkan visited a doctor's
surgery in Lynfield, using the victim's name. On December 3, Barkan left the country. The next
day Internal Affairs received an order for a birth
certificate in the victim's name. This was
processed and the certificate sent to the Auckland
post office box number supplied. Barkan, Cara and Kelman all travelled in and out
of New Zealand during December, apparently working
on the passport scam. In March, all three returned to New Zealand. On
March 6, Barkan rented an inner-city apartment on a
short-term agreement in St Paul St. Six days later he returned to the Lynfield
doctor complaining of a minor ailment. Barkan told
GP Keith Way to witness his passport
application, telling him it was needed urgently as
he was soon to marry in Australia. The doctor
filled out the form. On March 13 an urgent application for a passport
was lodged with Internal Affairs in Wellington.
With it was a genuine birth certificate and a
passport-sized photograph of Barkan. Cara left New
Zealand that day. Barkan left a week later. Kelman stayed in Auckland, where on a Kiwi
International Hotel registration form he entered
the same vehicle which records indicate was rented
to Barkan. This was March 21, the day police began
their sting. Cara and Kelman were arrested on March 23, after
plainclothes police watched as the passport was
delivered. According to the police
summary, the day began with a male caller
refusing to pick up the passport in person and
requesting it be delivered to Travcour, a Queen
St company specialising in travel documentation.
Undercover police made the delivery. About 1.25pm Travcour received a telephone
request from a male caller that the package
containing the passport be couriered to the St
Paul's address at which Barkan had rented an
apartment earlier in the month. Undercover police again made the delivery. The
apartment manager told them that an ex-tenant
(Barkan) had phoned requesting permission for a
package to be delivered to the office and asking
that he be phoned when it arrived. A detective noticed a person -- whom he later
identified as Cara -- at a cafe across the road
monitoring movements. About 2.35pm the manager was
contacted. He confirmed the package had arrived.
The caller told him a taxi would pick it up. At
2.38pm a call was made from Cara's phone to one
used by Barkan. An Alert taxi arrived at 3pm and, watched by
Cara, the driver picked up the package. The taxi
driver was told to go to a Freemans Bay
location. There Kelman was waiting. "On seeing plainclothes police, Kelman hid his
cellphone in bushes then walked swiftly from his
observation area," a prosecutor told the court.
Soon after, Kelman's phone began to ring. A
policeman retrieved it and answered it. It was the
taxi driver saying he had arrived. A former Mossad spy living in New Zealand has
said he suspects the agency is behind the scam. He said New Zealand passports were prized by spy
agencies, particularly Israel's, because they
didn't arouse the suspicion of border officials,
particularly in the Arab world which regarded the
New Zealand as sympathetic to Palestinians. If the men were Mossad, he said, it was unlikely
to be the first time the spy agency had tried to
get New Zealand passports. 
Two Israelis plead
guilty to trying to acquire a New Zealand
passport-
Mossad
sending hostile New Zealand Message Via
Asian-Based organisations after arrest of two
agents
-
May 19, 2004: BBC
reports that Lebanon smashes Mossad
assassination ring
-
May 13, 2004: The
1979 Mossad Assassination attempt on Ambassador
John Dean: Dean papers with full taste of
Mossad's evil opened at Jimmy Carter's
Presidential Library
-
May 9, 2004: Israelis
with fake docs arrested in Tennessee, 'how to
fly' leaflet found; were seen to toss something
else out of Ryder truck, FBI called in
-
May 1, 2004: Crown
Prince Abdullah says Zionists behind Terror
attacks in Saudi Arabia
-
A
history of Mossad's overseas
bungling
-
Apr 29 -- May .. 2004: Secrecy
surrounds two Mossad agents when they reappear
in Auckland court on NZ passport forgery
charges | Police
fear al Qaeda terrorists using NZ passports
following arrest of 2 men in Thailand and
seizure of fake NZ passports | The
two Mossad agents charged with NZ passport
offences photographed in Auckland reporting to
police as part of bail conditions |
Two
men believed by senior Government figures to be
Israeli secret service agents have been arrested
in Auckland trying to obtain a false New Zealand
passport | One
Mossad agent entered NZ on a fake Canadian
passport
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