Drug ‘Hit Squad’ Reports Spur Israeli Probe

Police opened an inquiry Sunday into Israelis suspected of training death squads for Colombian drug barons, and a retired army officer named in the scandal said the probe could implicate other officers and a legislator.

Yehoshua Caspi, head of the police investigations unit, said investigators would examine “all aspects of Israelis suspected of selling military services and know-how without Defense Ministry permission to unofficial groups in Colombia.”

He said the Defense Ministry had requested the investigation.

Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir said on Israel Television that the allegations contained a “certain amount of exaggeration” and that the government had no part in the scandal.

Retired Lt. Col. Yair Klein, who has been named by Israeli media as a mercenary who worked in Colombia, said on Israel Radio that he called Caspi on Sunday and asked to meet with the investigation team.

Klein said he is prepared to name a member of Parliament involved in the scandal.

He refused to give any details about the legislator other than to say he is a former army officer.

Reports from Colombia said four Israelis, along with American, British and South African mercenaries, were involved in training assassins for drug smugglers in Colombia.

Shamir, in his first comments on the mercenary scandal, said on Israel Television: “It is not pleasant to hear that there are Israelis dealing in ugly things, but there are Israelis in all different parts of the world involved in all sorts of things.

“The state of Israel cannot be responsible for them,” he said.

However, Edy Kaufman, an Israeli expert on Latin America, said Israel turns a blind eye to such training programs and to illegal arms sales because the trade is lucrative and gives jobs to former high-ranking military officers.

Klein, who returned to Israel from Miami on Friday, denied reports in the Israeli media that he was a mercenary who trained death squads for drug traffickers. But he said that last year he helped train banana growers and ranchers in Colombia’s countryside to fight guerrillas. He said he was paid $40,000 for two monthlong weapons training courses he conducted with three other retired Israeli officers and said all of his dealings in Colombia “were according to the law.”