‘UK failed to help me in Hamas spy affair’

JOURNALIST Paul Martin, who was accused of spying and detained in Gaza in a case similar to Matthew Hedges’, blasted the Foreign Office as “incompetent”.

Mr Martin was held by Hamas for four weeks in 2010 on suspicion of spying for Israel. He was kept in solitary for 26 days and even subjected to a mock execution.

He said:

“Matthew Hedges’ wife says the

Foreign Office behaved foolishly and endangered the academic. I agree.

“And unless they are exposed, the mandarins will continue doing so.”

Mr Martin was the first foreigner to be detained in Gaza after Hamas took over in the Palestinian territory in 2007.

He was suspected of being in touch with people in Gaza who were collaborating with Israel.

The group had said he “committed offences that harmed the security of the country” but gave no further detail. Mr Martin said: “When filming a report in Gaza in 2010 I was locked up and also accused of being a spy. The interrogators threw up some bizarre accusations against me, seemingly as laughable as the ones against Matthew Hedges.

“The Foreign Office sent a consular official to the prison where I was being held on the day after I was locked up, but did not come again for the rest of my detention, except to drive me out after I was released.

“On the day after my ‘arrest’, the British vice-consul came to prison and told me he could do nothing for me in political terms, but could make my life easier.

“After 26 days in solitary confinement and one mock execution, Hamas’s internal security unit was forced to set me free, but not because of Foreign Office pressure.

“On my return to Britain the Foreign Office asked me to brief them. Of course they never apologised. After all, the FO always knows best.”

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