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OTTAWA — The RCMP is investigating a local Passport Canada intelligence officer who allegedly told her Iranian-Canadian lover that an Israeli assassin is living in Canada under a new identity secretly provided by the government, a senior government source said Tuesday.
In a fast-moving investigation with ties to Dubai, Venezuela, Israel, Montreal and now Ottawa, the Mounties are trying to determine whether national security was breached in a case that rivals a Hollywood script.
Passport Canada national security officer Trina Kennedy had been assigned to an RCMP-led Integrated National Security Enforcement Team (INSET) looking into the activities of Montreal businessman Arian Azarbar, said the source.
Instead, Kennedy began an affair in the spring of 2010 with Azarbar, 33, which lasted for about a year and a half, Azarbar said in an interview Tuesday with the Citizen.
During their romance, Kennedy is said to have confided to him that the federal government created a Canadian passport and new life here for a former member of Israel’s Mossad security intelligence service involved in the January 2010 assassination in Dubai of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, a high-ranking member of the terrorist group Hamas.
“She was working on those cases when this whole Mossad thing was happening,” Azarbar said. “People talk.”
Mabhouh was a founder and senior commander of Hamas’s paramilitary wing and believed to be the liaison between the Palestinian group and Iran for weapons-smuggling operations into Gaza. Israel has never admitted involvement in the killing.
Kennedy has been placed on leave while police investigate, with no access to government offices or computers, said the source.
“There are a lot of allegations that are being investigated at this point. But there is no credible evidence to suggest that it is true at this point.”
Kennedy could not be reached for comment Tuesday.
Citizenship and Immigration Minister Chris Alexander, who is responsible for Passport Canada, called in police when the allegations surfaced, his office said Tuesday.
“He has asked officials to take swift and robust action to gather the facts and to ensure security and program integrity were not compromised in any way,” ministerial spokesman Kevin Menard said in a statement.
Meanwhile, a Montreal police detective was reportedly reassigned in January after allegations surfaced that he, too, leaked information to Azarbar. The businessman is identified in Montreal police documents of being a possible Iranian spy, according to Montreal media reports.
Azarbar said Tuesday he has known the police officer for years, but said he had nothing to do with the officer’s reassignment. He also categorically denied any involvement with his native Iran. He said he has lived in Montreal’s West Island community since the age of five.
“I’ve been to Iran once in my whole life for two weeks,” he said.
He said his troubles began when he received a government letter asking him to meet with federal agents.
There followed one or two initial meetings with Kennedy and a man he believes was from the Department of Foreign Affairs. He said they were most interested in learning about his business trips to Venezuela, where he sells housing construction products.
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