Hunt on for accomplices in passport case

By BRIDGET CARTER

Police have confirmed they are continuing to investigate the case of the alleged Mossad spies despite the jailing of two men this week.

Sources have told the Weekend Herald that tracking whether the two men had help within New Zealand is a focus of inquiries.

Uriel Kelman, 31, and Eli Cara, 51, were sentenced in the High Court at Auckland to six months prison and asked to pay $100,000 to the Cerebral Palsy Society for fraudulently trying to obtain a passport.

Though both men denied being spies, Prime Minister Helen Clark and Foreign Minister Phil Goff said there were "very strong grounds" to believe the men were acting for Israel's intelligence services.

Police are still hunting an Israeli, Zev William Barkan, 37, who has now fled the country, but who began the affair by applying for a passport.

Police were tipped off by Internal Affairs after they became concerned about irregularities in Barkan's application. He had taken the identity of a man around the same age, who had cerebral palsy, to apply.

A covert police operation found Cara and Kelman near drop-off points for the couriered passport.

Assistant Commissioner Jon White said he was not able to give details about the efforts being made to track down Barkan.

Police are also investigating an unnamed fourth man who they believe is still in New Zealand.

"There are a number of threads of inquiries which are still current in relation to this matter," he said.

"You can be assured officials from a number of agencies are fully engaged in this matter."

Mr White told the Weekend Herald police were concerned about how the four men were able to penetrate the passport system, and were working to close any gaps in the process.

"There are aspects of our systems that can be tightened and I'm sure the work that is ongoing will identify changes that can be made."

He said using the identity of disabled people to obtain passports was not new, but work underway was investigating how and why the victim was targeted. A person's circumstances had been exploited criminally to obtain a passport, and that concerned police and Internal Affairs.

"Extensive travel is involved," he said. "It is clear this was organised criminal activity with a transnational dimension.

"We are serious about how we approach transnational criminal activity of this nature, particularly when passports are involved."

Mr White said police had been working hard to see what other ramifications were arising from this case, which had to be built on good solid police work and evidence to build a prosecution. "Let's not forget these individuals went to some lengths to avoid detection".

Australian security agencies and police have confirmed they are investigating Cara, who lived in Sydney from 2001 with his wife and four children. He claimed to have set up a travel agency, although attempts to trace it have drawn a blank.

Yesterday, Australia's Labor Party sought a briefing from Canberra about whether Australia's security and passport systems had been breached.

The Australian Federal Police said they knew Cara had spent time in Australia, but declined to comment further. Commissioner Mick Keelty told ABC: "I'm not in a position to talk about what the person was doing in Australia."