Did Christchurch quake kill a Mossad agent?

New Zealand prime minister John Key has been forced to deny claims that the devastating Christchurch earthquake earlier this year killed a Mossad agent.

However, he told journalists today that the "unusual" behaviour of
Israelis in the wake of the 6.3 magnitude quake had sparked an
investigation that involved the New Zealand intelligence agency SIS.

"Security agencies conducted the investigation and found no evidence that the people were anything other than backpackers," he said.

Key was forced to answer questions after the Southland Times
reported that an Israeli man who died in the earthquake, which hit on February 22, was carrying five passports and that his friends left the country within 12 hours of the disaster.

Apparently 23-year-old Ofer Benyamin Mizrahi and his three fellow
Israelis had been shopping in Christchurch before returning to their van as the earthquake hit. Mizrahi, in the driver’s seat, was killed when masonry fell on the vehicle. The three others managed to escape and immediately fled the country.

The media has picked up on the remarkable interest shown by high-powered Israelis in the aftermath of the tragedy, which killed
181 people in total, and a number of other suspicious events:

• Mizrahi was reportedly found to have five passports.

• Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu is said to have called
John Key four times on the day of the earthquake.

• The Israeli civil defence chief flew to Christchurch.

• An Israeli search and rescue team was assembled incredibly quickly. When it arrived in Christchurch, it was refused permission to enter the 'red zone' – the central business district of the city that bore the brunt of the damage – because it did not have UN accreditation. Nevertheless, the team was later found in the red zone and removed from it by armed officers.

• The New Zealand SAS were sent into the red zone.

• Another Israeli relief team - this one consisting of forensic experts - was welcomed in New Zealand and allowed to work in the morgue. SIS agents, whose suspicions were aroused by Israel's close attention to the disaster, realised the team may have been able to access the country’s national database. They began an investigation, which remains open.

Today, Key, while confirming the SIS probe, insisted that Mizrahi only had two passports – one Israeli and one from a European country. He explained that he had only spoken to Netanyahu once and that it had taken Israeli officials several attempts to place the call successfully.

However, he refused to answer the question of whether the Israeli
government had done anything wrong, citing the New Zealand national interest.

The Israeli ambassador to the Pacific, meanwhile, was more forthright in his denials, describing claims of a Mossad cell in Christchurch as "science fiction".

Of course, even if the current story doesn’t stand up, such claims are not that far-fetched. In 2004, New Zealand imposed diplomatic
sanctions on Israel after two men suspected of being Mossad agents were convicted of passport fraud. ·