Israel charges Mossad agent with falsifying Syria reports

JERUSALEM, Dec. 7 (JTA) — An agent for Israel’s Mossad has been arrested and charged with supplying false information on Syria during the past two decades. Investigators suspect that Yehuda Gil, 63, also kept up to $57,000 in funds intended for other sources. The incident is the latest in a series of recent scandals to shake the Israeli spy service — but it was unclear what impact Gil’s information had on Israeli policy. Israeli media reported last week that Israel nearly went to war with Syria in the summer of 1996 because of disinformation. Gil’s lawyer, Yigal Shapira, denied that his client intentionally misled the government. But Shapira said in the past three or four years, Gil, who is retired, has been under pressure to provide fresh intelligence information and had recycled material he previously gathered from his source. Shapira rejected allegations that his client had taken money that was intended for his source. The Israeli daily Ha’aretz reported that a search of Gil’s home found thousands of dollars of Mossad funds and that investigators were looking for another $150,000 that they suspect Gil had kept illegally. A judge lifted a censorship ban over the weekend to allow the publication of Gil’s identity. The disclosure drew a pointed political reaction. Labor Knesset member Ori Orr, a member of the Knesset subcommittee on the secret services, said the subcommittee would discuss the incident’s implications for the intelligence establishment. The Mossad’s image was already battered this year by September’s failed assassination attempt on Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal in Jordan.