Israeli citizen Nati Meir, who was a member of the Romanian Parliament and was arrested the last week of October in the Greek island of Rhodes, claims that he is a former Mossad agent who worked for the intelligence agency in Romania, according to a Friday report from Ynet.
This was written in an official affidavit submitted by Meir to a Greek court to prevent his extradition to Bucharest, which requested his arrest this week following an arrest warrant. In the message it handed over to Interpol, Bucharest claimed that Meir fled Romania in 2016, avoiding an 11-year prison sentence for criminal fraud.
Next week there will be a hearing on Meir’s case in the Rhodes court.
Meir’s lawyer, Nir Yaslovitz, filed a petition on Friday in the court in the Greek island against his client’s extradition. In the petition, Yaslovitz claims that this is a hunting trip by Romania against Meir, even though he finished serving a five-year prison sentence. Yaslovitz also claims that Romania allowed Meir to leave the country, the report noted. He also accused Romania of “conducting a clearly illegal political hunting and persecution campaign against Meir.”
Not his first time being arrested
His arrest in Greece is not the only time Meir has been detained, as Ynet noted that two years ago, he was arrested in Dubai, and the Israeli Foreign Affairs Ministry intervened on his behalf a week later, and he returned to Israel.
“It is worth noting that I was a Mossad agent who was sent to Romania, where I lived for 20 years, from 1996 to 2016. I was able to be elected as a member of the Romanian Parliament in the Greater Romania Party (PRM) from 2004 to 2008, while I was also a candidate for the position of Parliament Speaker,” Ynet quoted him saying to the court. “But soon after, after realizing my status (a Mossad agent), a merciless ‘war’ was waged against me, accusing me of crimes I never committed, in order to erase me from the political map, and so they did.
“With baseless and false accusations, they sentenced me to a total prison sentence of 11 years, which I served in accordance with the provisions of Romanian law and was released on parole in 2016,” he continued.
Attorney Yaslovitz asked the Israeli Foreign Affairs Ministry to intervene on Meir’s behalf again, to which the ministry responded that it will, “through the the Israeli representation in Greece, grant Nati Meir the same consular treatment as that granted to any other Israeli detainee,” Ynet quoted them as saying.