This tale grew in the telling (as a great storyteller once wrote). It grew and grew from a couple of paragraphs, to a blog post to this full-blow investigative feature the more we found out.
Many thanks to Maath Musleh and Dena Shunra who both uncovered key evidence. And the whole EI team, as always.
In a 2002 article about “a criminal gang” that supposedly “imposed a two-year reign of terror” Paul Martin interviewed Zohair Hamdan, describing him as the “founder of the Movement for Coexistence in Jerusalem” who was attacked by the gang (“Exiled Palestinian militants ran two-year reign of terror,” The Washington Times, 13 May 2002).
But a recent Israeli court document describes Hamdan as once claiming to have had a position “in the ministry of defense.” The Israeli media has described him as “a proud collaborator,” reported that he and his family are legally armed and noted accusations in his hometown that he works for the Shabak (Israel’s secret police, also known as Shin Bet).