French official ‘smuggled arms from Gaza’

Jerusalem : A French consulate worker faced charges yesterday of using an official car to smuggle dozens of guns from the Gaza Strip to the occupied West Bank in a case Israeli authorities called “very severe”.

Israeli officials were quick to note that the worker from France’s Jerusalem consulate acted on his own without his superiors’ knowledge and that diplomatic relations between the two countries were not affected.

But the delicate case comes ahead of a planned visit next week to Israel and the Palestinian territories by French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian and French diplomats are sure to face questions over it.

The arrested French citizen and several Palestinian suspects are accused of belonging to a gun-running network that eventually sold the weapons to arms dealers, Israel’s Shin Bet domestic security agency said in a statement.

It alleged that Romain Franck, 23, had taken advantage of reduced security checks for consular vehicles to transport the weapons out of the Palestinian enclave.

The Shin Bet said he was motivated by money.

“The consulate employee smuggled the arms on a number of occasions in recent months while using the French consulate’s consular car, which underwent a more lax security inspection at the border crossing, as is the case with this type of car,” the statement said.

“The consulate employee transferred arms on five occasions, during which he transferred some 70 pistols and two automatic rifles.”

A total of nine suspects have been arrested and six were to be charged in court later yesterday, including Franck.

Those arrested also include a resident of east Jerusalem who works as a security guard at the French consulate, the Shin Bet said.

The statement said the French consulate employee received the guns from a Palestinian in Gaza who worked at the French cultural centre in the strip.

He then smuggled them into the West Bank to another person who sold them on to arms dealers, it said.

Gaza, run by Islamist group Hamas, has been under an Israeli blockade for over a decade but weapons have been smuggled in through tunnels from Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula.

News of the February 15 arrest emerged on Sunday, but the details were still unclear.

A spokesman for France’s embassy in Israel said Sunday “we take this case very seriously and are in close contact with the Israeli authorities”.

Franck “has benefited and continues to enjoy the consular protection” provided to French nationals, he said.

The Shin Bet called the incident “very severe”, saying that “the immunity and privileges given to foreign representatives were cynically abused to smuggle weapons that could be used for terror attacks against Israeli civilians and security forces”.

“The investigation was conducted in cooperation with the Israeli foreign ministry while constantly updating the French authorities,” it said.

An Israeli official said on condition of anonymity that while authorities were taking the case “very seriously,” diplomatic relations were not affected.