By Patrick Gower
3 News has spoken to one of the Israeli backpackers who fled the country hours after one of their group was killed in the Christchurch earthquake.
Guy Jordan says he and the others are upset at being suspected of being Israeli spies, and their families want an apology.
Mr Jordan only just walked away alive from the Christchurch earthquake, and New Zealand spies suspected he may have been a Mossad agent, along with his friends.
"It is big lie, and rubbish," he says.
Despite the top-level investigation, neither the SIS nor police - or other news media - have been in contact with Mr Jordan, and if they had, his explanation was simple.
"I was just a backpacker, trying to travel in New Zealand."
Mr Jordan is now back at Kibbutz Magal, a commune in northern Israel. His childhood friend, Ofer Mizrahi, was killed in the quake, and also suspected at the time of Mossad involvement.
"I can speak for him and say he wasn't some kind of spy," says Mr Jordan. "Like me, just a backpacker."
Backpacking over, Mr Jordan is now employed as a welder.
The other survivors - Michal Fraidman and Liron Sade - are back working in the kibbutz's olive grove and a shop.
Suspicion was fuelled by their quick departure from New Zealand. Mr Jordan says they simply went to Hagley Park and were offered a flight in a New Zealand Air Force 757 to Wellington with many other quake refugees.
"We didn't have anything besides our clothes because our car, with all our stuff was smashed by a building."
From there the Israeli ambassador Shemi Tzur got them back to Israel.
The SIS targeted Mr Jordan and Mr Mizrahi because they both had two passports.
He explained one was Israeli, their second passports were German and Hungarian - European Union access obtained through their grandparents.
His father, Amihai Jordan - who is now Mizrahi's mother's partner - said the families wanted an apology.
"They are not even something close to being a spy or whatever," says Amihai Jordan.
So it may not be the last the New Zealand has heard from the once suspected getaway spies.
3 News
source: newshub archive
