Posted on 02/29/2004 9:30:27 PM PST by BlackVeil
JERUSALEM (AFP) - An Israeli businessman freed by Hezbollah admitted he went to Dubai to conduct a drug deal when he was kidnapped in the Gulf Arab emirate by Lebanon's radical Shiite militia, newspapers reported.
During interrogation by Israeli security services, Elhanan Tannenbaum confessed to having travelled to Dubai for a deal set up by his former business partner Qais Obeid, an Arab Israeli who has taken refuge in Lebanon and is thought to be a Hezbollah agent, the Haaretz and Maariv dailies said.
After arriving in Dubai in October 2000, Tannenbaum, a reservist colonel in the Israeli army, was kidnapped and then moved to Lebanon by the Muslim fundamentalist movement Hezbollah.
The 57-year-old was returned to Israel last month as part of a controversial prisoner swap with Hezbollah but has since been grilled by investigators over the circumstances surrounding his capture.
Tannenbaum's reported confession came after he agreed a deal with Israeli authorities that would see him go free in return for providing full details of information he gave Hezbollah during his more than three years in captivity.
However if he is deemed to have lied at any stage or having given classified information to the Lebanese group, the plea bargain deal will be cancelled.
The plea bargain arrangement has sparked condemnation from many within Israel.
Two deputies, leading Labour opposition member Ophir Pines and Hemi Doron of the centrist Shinui faction, lodged an appeal Sunday before the supreme court against the plea bargain deal, judicial sources said.
"We cannot allow anyone to trade in state secrets which do not belong to them," Pines told public radio.
Many people thought that Tannenbaum must be a Mossad agent, or why else would the Israelis be so anxious to get him back?
There must be more to this story. Perhaps he was an intelligence operative, who thought that he could get some extra money by dealing drugs.
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