This Turkish ‘Grandmother’ caused Kenya problems

 Abdullah Ocalan, the Turkish international fugitive was arrested in Kenya in 1999 Photo: Courtesy

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin ‘Bibi’ Netanyahu, during his July State visit, promised that his county will use its spies to help Kenya fight terrorism.

Israeli spies are basically the feared Mossad, which in intelligence circles, is the world’s most efficient killing machine.

Bibi came here at the height of the public outcry over extra-judicial killings by Kenyan police, but the Mossad, since its creation in 1951, has been one extra-judicial killing factory, as Gordon Thomas informs us in, Gideon’s Spies: The Secret History of the Mossad published in 1999.

“When Mossad kills, it is not breaking the law. It is fulfilling a sentence sanctioned by the Prime Minister of the day,” Meir Amit, the former director of Mossad who died aged 88 in 2009, is quoted as saying in Gideon’s Spies that, “Our actions are all endorsed by the State of Israel.”

While Bibi promised intelligence sharing, sometimes Kenya is just special. The 2013 Westgate mall terror attack left 67 dead and over 170 injured in Nairobi despite swapped intelligence. Westgate is Israeli-owned and none were present during the attack! The efficiency of the Mossad in using gathered intelligence was put to full effect in Kenya over Abdullah Ocalan, the Turkish international fugitive in 1999.

Apo (Kurdish for uncle) was wanted in Turkey where his armed struggled had resulted in over 40, 000 deaths via his terror outfit, the Kurdistan Worker’s Party, which was engaged in a long struggle to secure an independent State for the Kurds — an oppressed minority spread across Turkey, Iraq and Syria. It had over 10,000 guerrilla insurgents.

Ocalan was unwanted in many countries until Greece gave him refuge courtesy of war veteran Costas Badovas, a friend of Ocalan and supporter of the Kurds.

With a forged passport, Greece intelligence spirited him to Kenya as a Cypriot journalist alongside his two female aides. Greece ambassador Georgios Costoulas played host before South Africa granted them asylum.

Greece was in a dilemma over ‘Grandmother’ (Ocalan) as Turkish President Suleyman Demirel had vowed, “Those who befriend him are the partners of a baby killer.”

Greece thus ordered his eviction, but did you know the female aides threatened to set themselves on fire on the lawns of the Greek embassy if the eviction was enforced?

The fire would have created a diplomatic smoke. See, Al-Qaeda terrorists had executed the 1998 ‘Bomb Blast’ in Nairobi, and here was Greece harbouring another terrorist! The CIA, who were still around after the terror attack on their embassy, sniffed Ocalan’s presence and alerted the Mossad who had trailed him from Italy, Spain, Morocco, Tunisia, Syria, Portugal and Holland after Turkish Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit had sought Mossad’s help through Bibi.

The Mossad were intercepting communication from the Greece ambassador’s residence, and learnt that northern Iraq, a Kurdish stronghold, was an option Ocalan was entertaining. Thomas tells us that one Mossad agent, who spoke fluent Kurdish, befriended one of ‘Grandmother’s’ bodyguards at The Norfolk hotel, and suggested they smuggle Ocalan to northern Iraq. Deal.

That was how on February 14, 1999, a Falcon-900 executive jet arrived at Wilson Airport to “pick up a group of businessmen.” Although Ocalan had packed to leave for northern Iraq, the Mossad, working in cahoots with Kenya’s NSIS, did not wait, instead, they stormed Costoulas’ residence and spirited Ocalan to Wilson Airport where Turkish intelligence officers seized, shackled, gagged and blindfolded him.

The Mossad was never to take credit. Kenya did, causing a diplomatic kerfuffle. Kenyan embassies in Europe were surrounded by protesting Kurdish sympathisers, forcing Foreign Affairs Minister, the late Bonaya Godana, to close all 34 embassies abroad. Costoulas locked himself at the Greece embassy along Kimathi Street for three days!

Ocalan was sentenced to death. The penalty was reduced to life in 2002 after Turkey abolished the death penalty.

‘Grandmother’ has been cooling his Kurdish heels in solitary confinement at the Imrali prison island off north-western Turkey since.