‘UK failed to help me in Hamas spy affair’
Couple were so happy as they wed said: “When filming a report in Gaza in 2010 I was locked up and JOURNALIST Paul Martin, who also accused of being a spy. The was accused of spying and interrogators threw up some detained in Gaza in a case similar bizarre accusations against me, to Matthew Hedges’, blasted the seemingly as laughable as the Foreign Office as “incompetent”. ones against Matthew Hedges.
Mr Martin was held by Hamas “The Foreign Office sent a for four weeks in 2010 on consular official to the prison suspicion of spying for Israel. He where I was being held on the day was kept in solitary after I was locked up, for 26 days and but did not come even subjected to a again for the rest of mock execution. my detention, except
He said: to drive me out after “Matthew Hedges’ I was released. wife says the “On the day after Foreign Office my ‘arrest’, the behaved foolishly British vice-consul and endangered the came to prison and academic. I agree. told me he could do
“And unless they nothing for me in are exposed, the Paul Martin political terms, but mandarins will continue doing so.” could make my life easier.
Mr Martin was the first “After 26 days in solitary foreigner to be detained in Gaza confinement and one mock after Hamas took over in the execution, Hamas’s internal Palestinian territory in 2007. security unit was forced to set me
He was suspected of being in free, but not because of Foreign touch with people in Gaza who Office pressure. were collaborating with Israel. “On my return to Britain the
The group had said he Foreign Office asked me to brief “committed offences that harmed them. Of course they never the security of the country” but apologised. After all, the FO gave no further detail. Mr Martin always knows best.”