Forgery Case Spurs Canada to Recall Israel Envoy

Canada angrily denied involvement in an apparent assassination attempt by two suspected Israeli spies and said Thursday that it was recalling its ambassador to Israel to protest the use of forged Canadian passports in the affair.

Foreign Minister Lloyd Axworthy said Canada had determined that the passports were forged and that neither of the men were Canadian nationals. They were arrested last week in Amman, the Jordanian capital, after an apparent attempt on the life of an official of the militant Islamic group Hamas.

“There is no record whatsoever of any Canadian complicity in this matter,” Axworthy said. “Canada had nothing to do with it.”

Axworthy, who was in New York to attend the U.N. General Assembly debate, spoke to Israel’s deputy foreign minister to relay word of the Canadian protest.

Axworthy said that when Israeli agents use forged Canadian passports, it puts Canadian travelers at risk in the Middle East.

He said Canada takes “great exception to the use of the reputation of Canadian passports for those kinds of purposes.”

According to Canadian reports, Israel had promised to bar agents from its Mossad spy agency from using Canadian passports after they were caught doing so in 1981.

A former Mossad agent, Victor Ostrovsky, has written a book describing hundreds of blank Canadian passports stacked at Mossad headquarters in the 1980s.

Khaled Meshaal, spokesman of the militant Islamic movement, was assaulted last week outside his office in Amman in what Hamas said was a botched assassination attempt by the Mossad. Israel denies the charge.

Israel’s surprise release of Sheik Ahmed Yassin on Wednesday is widely believed to be part of a deal to compensate for the botched undercover operation against Meshaal, despite a Jordanian denial and Israel’s refusal to comment.