Leaked details of Mossad assassin’s fake Canadian passport under RCMP scrutiny
Published on: February 20, 2014 | Last Updated: May 20, 2014 5:09 AM EDT
OTTAWA — The RCMP is investigating a local Passport Canada intelligence officer who allegedly told her Iranian-Canadian lover that an Israeli assassin is living in Canada under a new identity secretly provided by the government, a senior government source said Tuesday.
In a fast-moving investigation with ties to Dubai, Venezuela, Israel, Montreal and now Ottawa, the Mounties are trying to determine whether national security was breached in a case that rivals a Hollywood script.
Passport Canada national security officer Trina Kennedy had been assigned to an RCMP-led Integrated National Security Enforcement Team (INSET) looking into the activities of Montreal businessman Arian Azarbar, said the source.
Instead, Kennedy began an affair in the spring of 2010 with Azarbar, 33, which lasted for about a year and a half, Azarbar said in an interview Tuesday with the Citizen.
During their romance, Kennedy is said to have confided to him that the federal government created a Canadian passport and new life here for a former member of Israel’s Mossad security intelligence service involved in the January 2010 assassination in Dubai of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, a high-ranking member of the terrorist group Hamas.
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“She was working on those cases when this whole Mossad thing was happening,” Azarbar said. “People talk.”
Mabhouh was a founder and senior commander of Hamas’s paramilitary wing and believed to be the liaison between the Palestinian group and Iran for weapons-smuggling operations into Gaza. Israel has never admitted involvement in the killing.
Kennedy has been placed on leave while police investigate, with no access to government offices or computers, said the source.
“There are a lot of allegations that are being investigated at this point. But there is no credible evidence to suggest that it is true at this point.”
Kennedy could not be reached for comment Tuesday.
Citizenship and Immigration Minister Chris Alexander, who is responsible for Passport Canada, called in police when the allegations surfaced, his office said Tuesday.
“He has asked officials to take swift and robust action to gather the facts and to ensure security and program integrity were not compromised in any way,” ministerial spokesman Kevin Menard said in a statement.
Meanwhile, a Montreal police detective was reportedly reassigned in January after allegations surfaced that he, too, leaked information to Azarbar. The businessman is identified in Montreal police documents of being a possible Iranian spy, according to Montreal media reports.
Azarbar said Tuesday he has known the police officer for years, but said he had nothing to do with the officer’s reassignment. He also categorically denied any involvement with his native Iran. He said he has lived in Montreal’s West Island community since the age of five.
“I’ve been to Iran once in my whole life for two weeks,” he said.
He said his troubles began when he received a government letter asking him to meet with federal agents.
There followed one or two initial meetings with Kennedy and a man he believes was from the Department of Foreign Affairs. He said they were most interested in learning about his business trips to Venezuela, where he sells housing construction products.
He said he also had spent time around Hugo Chavez, the country’s fiery socialist leader who died last year.
“Did I work for the Iranian government? No, never. Did I like Chavez? Absolutely. I thought he was one of the greatest men in the world.”
Azarbar blamed much of his situation on a federal customs official in Toronto. Azarbar believes the man was jealous of his relationship with Kennedy, who has been separated from her husband, he said.
“When he found out about my relationship with Trina, he went berserk. It’s him that made this whole story.”
The Toronto man could not be reached Tuesday.
Azarbar said the relationship with Kennedy did not end well. “After this happened, I guess the flow of information went a bit against me.”
Mabhouh’s murder drew global attention to Mossad’s ruthless pursuit of Israel’s enemies, its tradecraft and debates about the morality of political assassination.
A hit team of more than 25 men and a woman travelling on forged British, Irish, German and French passports arrived at a hotel in Dubai, where they drugged and suffocated Mabhouh in his unguarded five-star suite, Dubai police concluded.
Several countries later condemned the use of the counterfeit passports, with Britain and Australia each expelling an Israeli diplomat in retaliation.
Months later, the Globe and Mail reported that Dubai’s police chief insisted a Canadian security official later informed him of the secret arrest of a Mossad assassin, even though Canadian officials denied having ever told him that.
“A senior Canadian security official here told me in July (2010) that they have made an arrest of one of the suspects,” Lt.-Gen. Dahi Khalfan Tamim told the newspaper.
“The person informed me then that this information was not to be released in the media and was only for the police. Since then we have not heard any more information and I don’t understand the secrecy.”
He did not say who may have been arrested, where he or she would have been taken into custody, or which Canadian agency supposedly did the job.
Canada’s INSETs are made up of officers and officials from the RCMP, federal partners and agencies such as Canada Border Services Agency, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), and provincial and municipal police services. They are located in Vancouver, Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal and Alberta.
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