Friends shocked at 'fourth man' tag

By CATHERINE MASTERS and PHIL TAYLOR

The Aucklander who fled to Israel after the Israeli passport spy scandal has left disbelieving friends and colleagues in his wake.

New Zealanders who knew Tony Resnick say they are stunned that he is being sought by the police searching for the alleged "fourth man" in the case.

They describe the 35-year-old as a serious, private young man who was heading for a top academic career.

Mr Resnick left New Zealand the day after Israelis Uriel Kelman and Eli Cara - believed by the Government to be Mossad agents - were caught trying to obtain a New Zealand passport. His wife Karen and daughter Shani followed days later.

The fake passport application was sent with the photograph of another man being sought by police, former Israeli diplomat Zev William Barkan.

It was lodged using the name of an Auckland man with cerebral palsy who belonged to St John Ambulance, where Mr Resnick worked as an ambulance officer.

Mr Resnick had previously lived in Israel, where he was a paramedic in the military during the Gulf War.

When he returned he wrote a masters thesis on an exercise programme for people with heart disease, at the same time working for St John. He then began work as a lecturer in a new paramedic programme at the Auckland University of Technology.

Dr Chris Baldi, a lecturer in exercise physiology, was Mr Resnick's main supervisor when he studied at Auckland University and knew him well professionally.

"I thought he was coming back," Dr Baldi told the Weekend Herald. "He never led me to believe he was giving it away and that's a shame because ... he was a very effective lecturer and was doing a really good job with the new programme."

Kelman's lawyer, Geoff Levy, who stepped down as co-chairman of the Auckland Jewish Council this year, said he had known Mr Resnick, a former council member, for many years.

He said the allegations about Mr Resnick were no more than that and should be treated with caution.

He hadn't spoken to Mr Resnick this year, "certainly not since he left New Zealand".

Vernon Levy - a former landlord of Mr Resnick and a friend but not a relative of Geoff Levy - said that he was "as surprised as anyone" by reports that police investigating the passport scam wanted to talk to Mr Resnick.

A security commentator writing last week in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz said if it was established that Mr Resnick had facilitated a Mossad operation, such work would be in line with Mossad methods of using sayanim - or helpers, many of them Jewish - around the world.

Dr Baldi said he would find it hard to believe Mr Resnick would do anything against New Zealand interests. "I thought Tony was a really neat guy. I'm very surprised by the allegations."

Dr Harry Prapavessis, another lecturer, said he was stunned to hear of a possible connection between Mr Resnick and the spy case.

"Hopefully he's gone back to Israel for other reasons than to escape the law."

Those the Weekend Herald spoke to said Mr Resnick never talked about Israeli politics, but Karen Resnick - who worked at Dulux Paints in Newmarket - wrote a letter published in the Herald in April 2002 in response to a story about Palestinian families being terrified after the Israeli Army occupied Bethlehem.

Mrs Resnick commented on the headline "Look Out the Window and Die in Town of Terror", which referred to an Israeli soldier shooting a Palestinian boy dead when he put his head up at the window.

"It is strange how we never see the headlines such as 'step on a bus and die', or 'eat in a restaurant and die'," she wrote, "although this is the reality of lives for the Israeli people."

* Email Catherine Masters