Israelis jailed for six months on passport fraud charge

6.00pm

Two Israeli men believed to be agents of the Israeli secret service Mossad have each been sentenced in the Auckland High Court to six months prison on passport fraud charges.

Lawyers for Uriel Zoshe Kelman, 30, and Eli Cara, 50, denied claims the men had any link to Mossad.

Today's sentencing took two and a half hours.

Both men were filmed in court but Kelman held his hand over his face the whole time. He kept his face covered when entering and leaving court on all previous occasions.

Both mean pleaded guilty ealier this month to charges of attempting to illegally gain a New Zealand passport.

They were arrested in March after they tried to collect a passport in the name of a wheelchair-bound cerebral palsy victim.

Two other men thought to be involved in the crime are still on the loose.

One has been named as Zev William Barkan, 36, but police do not know the identity of the fourth man.

The four men had been in and out of the country since November last year. Cara has travelled in and out 24 times since October 2000.

Cara, who had been staying at Auckland's President Plaza hotel since the Herald broke the spy scandal in April, turned up at court earlier this month wearing a dark suit, white shirt and blue tie. Kelman wore a balaclava to court to hide his face. A tall, slim man with freckles, short red hair and glasses in April, he had dramatically changed his appearance.

Department of Internal Affairs officer, Ian 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 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.

When Internal Affairs informed the police about their 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 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.

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 Herald indicate it does not exist - or if it does, it operates 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.

The man whose identity was stolen by the Israeli men has permanent name suppression.

His family has told the Herald that around November last year, Zev Barkan moved in about 300m down the road from where he was living.

Mystery still surrounds how the spies selected their victim, who lives in care.

In addition to the prison sentences, Cara and Kelman were today ordered to pay $50,000 to the Cerebral Palsy Society of New Zealand.

A police source told the Herald that officers were concerned the group might have used the scam to obtain other passports.

- HERALD STAFF