Report: Mossad agent in NZ was involved in botched '98 operation

One of the two alleged Mossad agents who served a prison sentence in New Zealand following a botched operation was involved in another failed operation in Cyprus in 1998, according to an article in today's New Zealand Sunday Star Times.

The article, published on the first anniversary of the operation in which two agents, Elisha Cara and Uriel Kelman, were each sentenced to six months in jail and a fine of 50,000 New Zealand dollars, states that the failures show "a culture of carelessness," "bad judgment" and "doing favors for friends" in the Mossad.

The paper also alleges that, "based on western European intelligence," the failures in both New Zealand and Cyprus were never properly investigated, and that Cara and Kelman, together with accomplices still at large, apparently had managed to obtain New Zealand passports intended for future use by the Mossad.

The article, by Nick Hager, who covers the paper's intelligence beat, claims that Cara, 50, who headed the Mossad's Neviot branch - responsible for breaking into buildings, surveillance and bugging - had sent two unsuitable operatives to Cyprus in an intelligence-gathering mission involving Hezbollah in 1998. The two were arrested by Cypriot police and served nine months of a three-year prison term.

The paper says that after the failure, Cara was transfered to a position at Mossad headquarters, but moved back up through the ranks thanks to his friendship with a senior Mossad official who posted him to Australia, where he masqueraded as a travel agent.

According to the article, Cara's transfer to Australia was a case of negligence and poor judgment, since he was already known to the Australian intelligence community due to intelligence exchanges between Israel and Australia.

Cara, who was deported along with Kelman to Israel after serving three months in prison, left the Mossad to take a senior position with the Visa Israel credit card company. The paper states that the senior official is third from the top at Mossad headquarters, and sees himself in line for the position of deputy head.