Buffeted by False Media Accusations, Former Mossad Case Officer Ostrovsky Starts His Own Web Site

By Victor Ostrovsky

Last Aug. 9, Ehud Ya’ari of Israel’s state-run television reported on the “Mabat” evening news the content of an interview I supposedly had given to British writer Gordon Thomas. The interview, according to Ehud Ya’ari, had been carried several days earlier in the Saudi-owned weekly Al Wasat, published in London. In the article Mr. Thomas allegedly quoted me as saying that I had volunteered to testify on behalf of the two Libyans accused of bombing Pan American Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland on Dec. 21, 1988.

Ya’ari went on to say I had told Thomas that I knew the Mossad was aware of the bombing plan, but that it had consciously decided not to pass the information on to the Americans. Thomas apparently had suggested that I had told lawyers representing the Libyans that I would not agree to come to Holland to testify, and therefore arrangements would be made to take my testimony via closed circuit television.

To add credibility to the story as presented on Israeli television, old footage of me answering questions was run in the background while Ya’ari provided the narrative voice-over. Now the story, which apparently was plucked by Gordon Thomas out of thin air, had legs.

Not to be outdone, the Israeli print media picked it up and published it. And, even though most of the reporters on the major Israeli newspapers have ways of reaching me—which they do regularly when they have a breaking story about Israeli intelligence and they need real background information—not one of them took the precaution of checking with me to see if there was even a kernel of truth in the report about the “interview” that never happened. Ironically, the gullible journalists who picked up the story were the same ones who, only a few months earlier, had branded that same Gordon Thomas a liar and a fool after he published his book about the Israeli secret service entitled Gideon’s Spies: The Secret History of the Mossad.

The Israeli journalists had interviewed most of the people Thomas quoted in his book and the journalists turned into front-page news any denials they received of the accuracy of Thomas’ reports. I, for one, was not at all impressed with his understanding of the Mossad, not to mention some of his assertions. But by spinning a web of lies about me, someone Israelis love to hate, Thomas suddenly became a good media source.

Despite my firm denials, these stories simply refuse to die.

When I heard about the report on Israeli television I called Ehud Ya’ari at his home in Israel and explained to him that I had never spoken to Gordon Thomas and that at no time had I volunteered my services to the defense attorneys for the Libyans accused of the bombing.

I made it very clear to Mr. Ya’ari that the “interview” was all a fabrication, and I explained to him that if I knew of such a conspiracy by the Mossad I would not wait for a trial to make it public. I asked that he retract the story or, at the very least, report my statement that the interview never took place.

His answer surprised me almost as much as did his original report. “You need to take it up with Al Wasat,” he told me. “I only quoted them. If they will retract it, I will broadcast that.”

Meantime the story was making waves in Israel and threatening to cross over to Europe and the U.S. I called a variety of news organizations and warned them about this baseless tale. For the most part they assured me that if the source was Gordon Thomas, I had little to worry about.

In fact this was not the first time this story had made its way to the press. Several months earlier, at the urging of a friend, I agreed to an interview with Washington, DC writer Russell Warren Howe. He asked me over and over about the Pan Am 103 explosion and wanted to know if it was at all possible that the Mossad was somehow involved. I repeated to him what I had said many times previously: That I had no information on the matter and would not be willing to speculate.

Howe asked me if I would be willing to testify in a trial if one were held. I said that if asked I would consider it, though I did not see the point, since I knew nothing about the tragedy.

Mass Circulation

It was not long after that that Howe wrote the story that eventually made its way to Israeli television’s news. He apparently sold the tale to the Lebanese daily newspaper Al Hayat, which has the same ownership as the weekly Al Wasat, and also to The Guardian in England.

I complained to The Guardian’s publisher that the report was not accurate. Howe then wrote a retraction, saying that he might not have understood me and therefore had expressed his own views, not my words.

Not long after that I was called by a Mr. McNamara, the security chief for Mohammed Al Fayed, the Egyptian-born owner of Harrod’s department store in London and the Ritz Hotel in Paris. McNamara told me that he understood from a Gordon Thomas that I had information that might implicate the Mossad in the accident in which Princess Diana and El Fayed’s son, Dodi, were killed in Paris. McNamara told me that Mr. Thomas said I was hiding somewhere in South America and that he could act as the contact.

I made it clear to Mr. McNamara that I had never met Mr. Thomas, that I was not represented by Mr. Thomas or Mr. Howe, and that I had no knowledge of Mossad involvement in either the Pan Am 103 tragedy or the fatal auto crash in Paris.

Despite my best efforts and firm denials these stories, which undoubtedly sell magazines, simply refuse to die. And, by creating rumors which then must be put to rest, they further muddy the murky waters in which Mossad operates.

As a result of this on-going fiasco, I have started a Web site of my own at <www.themossad.com>. Should Washington Report readers hear a story about me they wish to verify, or wish to ask me a question, I invite them to send it to <victor@themossad.com>.

Victor Ostrovsky, a former Mossad case officer, has written two books about his experiences, By Way of Deception: The Making and Unmaking of a Mossad Officer and The Other Side of Deception: A Rogue Agent Exposes the Mossad’s Secret Agenda . Both are available on audiotape through the AET Book Club.