311 Australia expels Israeli official for faked Australian passports used in Hamas killing-

Australia expels Israeli official for faked Australian passports used in Hamas killing

(1) Australian Government says Israel faked Australian passports used in Hamas killing
(2) Australia expels Israeli embassy official
(3) Mossad Does Interrogations in Iraqi Jails: Human Rights Group
(4) Israel offered to sell South Africa nuclear weapons; deal bears Peres' signature
(5) American Jewish attorney seeks to bar Goldstone from US
(6) Israel's complicity in Apartheid undermines its attack on Goldstone
(7) Kashmir Moslems oppose DNA test of remains at alleged tomb of Jesus

(1) Australian Government says Israel faked Australian passports used in Hamas killing

From: Josef Schwanzer <donauschwob@optusnet.com.au> Date: 24.05.2010 02:40 AM

http://www.news.com.au/world/israel-responsible-for-faking-passports/story-e6frfkyi-1225870515643

Israel responsible for faking Australian passports used in Hamas killing

AAP

May 24, 2010 12:49PM

FOREIGN Minister Stephen Smith has told Parliament Israel was responsible for faking four Australian passports used in the killing of a senior Hamas official.

"Investigations and advice have left the Government in no doubt Israel was responsible for the abuse and counterfeiting of these passports," Mr Smith said today.

He asked that a member of the Israeli Embassy in Canberra be withdrawn from Australia within the week, as a result of the scandal.

"This is not what we expect from a nation with whom we have had such a close, friendly and supportive relationship," he said.

Mr Smith said there was no evidence the passport holders were anything but innocent victims.

"The high quality of these counterfeited passports points to the involvement of a state intelligence service," he said.

Hamas official Mahmud al-Mabhuh was assassinated in Dubai in January.

The Israeli embassy was not immediately available for comment.

Mr Smith said it was not the first time that Australian passports had been misused by Israeli authorities.

"The Dubai passports incident also constitutes a clear and direct breach of confidential undertakings between Australia and Israel dating back some years," he said. ...

Mr Smith said the United Kingdom reached similar conclusions after its investigation into the misuse of British passports in the Dubai incident.

"No government can tolerate the abuse of its passports, especially by a foreign government," he said.

"This represents a clear affront to the security of our passport system."

The fake Australian passports used were in the names of Nicole McCabe, Joshua Bruce, Joshua Krycer and Adam Korman.

Earlier this year, the British Government announced it was kicking out an Israeli diplomat over the "intolerable" use of fake British passports in the killing of al-Mabhuh.

(2) Australia expels Israeli embassy official

http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-world/australia-expels-israeli-embassy-official-20100524-w7oq.html

MADELEINE COOREY

May 24, 2010 - 5:54PM

Australia Monday said it would expel an official from the Israeli embassy, after finding the Jewish state was behind fake Australian passports linked to the killing of a Hamas operative.

Foreign Minister Stephen Smith said Australia remained a "firm friend" of Israel but that no government could tolerate the abuse of its passports.

"The government has asked that a member of the Israeli embassy in Canberra be withdrawn from Australia," Smith told parliament, without identifying the official.

"I have asked that the withdrawal be effected within a week."

An investigation into how four Australian passports were used by the team that carried out the January killing of Hamas operative Mahmud al-Mabhuh in a luxury Dubai hotel found the documents were forgeries, Smith said.

He said the high quality of the forged passports pointed to the involvement of a state intelligence service.

"These investigations and advice have left the government in no doubt that Israel was responsible for the abuse and counterfeiting of these passports," he said.

Smith said this was not the first time that Israel had misused Australian passports, but he declined to comment on the other occasions.

"This is not what we expect from a nation with whom we have had such a close, supportive relationship," he said. "These are not the actions of a friend."

"The government takes this step much more in sorrow than in anger," he added.

The Israeli foreign ministry expressed disappointment.

"We are sorry for the Australian step, which is not in line with the nature and importance of the relationship," between the two nations, said foreign ministry spokesman Yigal Palmore.

Suspects in the killing of Mahmud al-Mabhuh used the identities of 12 Britons, as well as those of people from France, Germany and Ireland along with the four Australians, Dubai police have said.

In March, Britain kicked out an Israeli diplomat over the "intolerable" use of fake British passports also used in the killing.

The British government declined to specify the position of the expelled diplomat, but local media reported the individual was a senior operative in Israel's spy agency Mossad. ...

© 2010 AFP
This story is sourced direct from an overseas news agency as an additional service to readers. Spelling follows North American usage, along with foreign currency and measurement units.

(3) Mossad Does Interrogations in Iraqi Jails: Human Rights Group

From: Sami Joseph <sajoseph2005@yahoo.com> Date: 24.05.2010 04:16 PM

Xinhua

http://www.uruknet.de/?p=66255

May 22, 2010 - The Arab Organization for Human Rights (AOHR) said on Saturday that Israel's intelligence agency Mossad is interrogating Arab prisoners in Iraqi jails. "I received calls from Jordanian prisoners at Iraqi jails and they informed us that Mossad is interrogating them and other Arab prisoners in jails in Iraq," Abdul Karim Shreideh, head of the prisoners and detention centers committee at AOHR, said in a press conference in the Jordanian capital of Amman Saturday. "The prisoners said Mossad gives them the option to work with the agency as their agents and thus be able to leave the prisons or remain in jail," Shreideh told reporters at the conference held to launch the AOHR's annual report on situation of human rights in Jordan in 2009 ...

(4) Israel offered to sell South Africa nuclear weapons; deal bears Peres' signature
From: Kristoffer Larsson <kristoffer.larsson@sobernet.nu> Date: 24.05.2010 07:21 PM

Revealed: how Israel offered to sell South Africa nuclear weapons

Exclusive: Secret apartheid-era papers give first official evidence of Israeli nuclear weapons

Chris McGreal in Washington

guardian.co.uk, Sunday 23 May 2010 21.00 BST

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/may/23/israel-south-africa-nuclear-weapons

{caption} The secret military agreement signed by Shimon Peres, now president of Israel, and P W Botha of South Africa. Photograph: Guardian {end}
{image} http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2010/5/23/1274641952654/The-secret-military-agree-006.jpg {end}

Secret South African documents reveal that Israel offered to sell nuclear warheads to the apartheid regime, providing the first official documentary evidence of the state's possession of nuclear weapons.

The "top secret" minutes of meetings between senior officials from the two countries in 1975 show that South Africa's defence minister, PW Botha, asked for the warheads and Shimon Peres, then Israel's defence minister and now its president, responded by offering them "in three sizes". The two men also signed a broad-ranging agreement governing military ties between the two countries that included a clause declaring that "the very existence of this agreement" was to remain secret.

The documents, uncovered by an American academic, Sasha Polakow-Suransky, in research for a book on the close relationship between the two countries, provide evidence that Israel has nuclear weapons despite its policy of "ambiguity" in neither confirming nor denying their existence.

The Israeli authorities tried to stop South Africa's post-apartheid government declassifying the documents at Polakow-Suransky's request and the revelations will be an embarrassment, particularly as this week's nuclear non-proliferation talks in New York focus on the Middle East.

They will also undermine Israel's attempts to suggest that, if it has nuclear weapons, it is a "responsible" power that would not misuse them, whereas countries such as Iran cannot be trusted.

South African documents show that the apartheid-era military wanted the missiles as a deterrent and for potential strikes against neighbouring states.

The documents show both sides met on 31 March 1975. Polakow-Suransky writes in his book published in the US this week, The Unspoken Alliance: Israel's secret alliance with apartheid South Africa. At the talks Israeli officials "formally offered to sell South Africa some of the nuclear-capable Jericho missiles in its arsenal".

Among those attending the meeting was the South African military chief of staff, Lieutenant General RF Armstrong. He immediately drew up a memo in which he laid out the benefits of South Africa obtaining the Jericho missiles but only if they were fitted with nuclear weapons.

The memo, marked "top secret" and dated the same day as the meeting with the Israelis, has previously been revealed but its context was not fully understood because it was not known to be directly linked to the Israeli offer on the same day and that it was the basis for a direct request to Israel. In it, Armstrong writes: "In considering the merits of a weapon system such as the one being offered, certain assumptions have been made: a) That the missiles will be armed with nuclear warheads manufactured in RSA (Republic of South Africa) or acquired elsewhere."

But South Africa was years from being able to build atomic weapons. A little more than two months later, on 4 June, Peres and Botha met in Zurich. By then the Jericho project had the codename Chalet.

The top secret minutes of the meeting record that: "Minister Botha expressed interest in a limited number of units of Chalet subject to the correct payload being available." The document then records: "Minister Peres said the correct payload was available in three sizes. Minister Botha expressed his appreciation and said that he would ask for advice." The "three sizes" are believed to refer to the conventional, chemical and nuclear weapons.

The use of a euphemism, the "correct payload", reflects Israeli sensitivity over the nuclear issue and would not have been used had it been referring to conventional weapons. It can also only have meant nuclear warheads as Armstrong's memorandum makes clear South Africa was interested in the Jericho missiles solely as a means of delivering nuclear weapons.

In addition, the only payload the South Africans would have needed to obtain from Israel was nuclear. The South Africans were capable of putting together other warheads.

Botha did not go ahead with the deal in part because of the cost. In addition, any deal would have to have had final approval by Israel's prime minister and it is uncertain it would have been forthcoming.

South Africa eventually built its own nuclear bombs, albeit possibly with Israeli assistance. But the collaboration on military technology only grew over the following years. South Africa also provided much of the yellowcake uranium that Israel required to develop its weapons.

The documents confirm accounts by a former South African naval commander, Dieter Gerhardt – jailed in 1983 for spying for the Soviet Union. After his release with the collapse of apartheid, Gerhardt said there was an agreement between Israel and South Africa called Chalet which involved an offer by the Jewish state to arm eight Jericho missiles with "special warheads". Gerhardt said these were atomic bombs. But until now there has been no documentary evidence of the offer.

Some weeks before Peres made his offer of nuclear warheads to Botha, the two defence ministers signed a covert agreement governing the military alliance known as Secment. It was so secret that it included a denial of its own existence: "It is hereby expressly agreed that the very existence of this agreement... shall be secret and shall not be disclosed by either party".

The agreement also said that neither party could unilaterally renounce it.

The existence of Israel's nuclear weapons programme was revealed by Mordechai Vanunu to the Sunday Times in 1986. He provided photographs taken inside the Dimona nuclear site and gave detailed descriptions of the processes involved in producing part of the nuclear material but provided no written documentation.

Documents seized by Iranian students from the US embassy in Tehran after the 1979 revolution revealed the Shah expressed an interest to Israel in developing nuclear arms. But the South African documents offer confirmation Israel was in a position to arm Jericho missiles with nuclear warheads.

Israel pressured the present South African government not to declassify documents obtained by Polakow-Suransky. "The Israeli defence ministry tried to block my access to the Secment agreement on the grounds it was sensitive material, especially the signature and the date," he said. "The South Africans didn't seem to care; they blacked out a few lines and handed it over to me. The ANC government is not so worried about protecting the dirty laundry of the apartheid regime's old allies."

(5) American Jewish attorney seeks to bar Goldstone from US

From: Kristoffer Larsson <kristoffer.larsson@sobernet.nu> Date: 22.05.2010 09:56 AM

Attorney seeks to bar Goldstone from US

By E.B. SOLOMONT, JERUSALEM POST CORRESPONDENT

14/05/2010 02:31

Ex-Justice Department official cites judge's rulings under apartheid.

http://www.jpost.com/International/Article.aspx?id=175557

NEW YORK – A well-known American Jewish attorney who worked to deport former Nazis from the US is urging American officials to bar former judge Richard Goldstone from entering the country over his rulings during South Africa's apartheid regime.

In a letter sent to US officials, Neal Sher, a former executive director of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, said that recently disclosed information about Goldstone's apartheid-era rulings raised questions about whether he was eligible to enter the United States. The letter was sent to US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, US Attorney-General Eric Holder and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano.

Individuals who admit to acts that constitute a crime of moral turpitude are ineligible to enter the US, Sher charged. The recent public revelations, to which Goldstone has reportedly admitted, would appear to fit within this provision. At a minimum, there is ample basis for federal authorities to initiate an investigation into this matter, Sher said.

Goldstone, the author of a report accusing Israel of war crimes during Operation Cast Lead, sat as a judge in South Africa during the apartheid regime. He has faced recent charges that he sent 28 black South Africans to their deaths. Goldstone has defended his rulings, saying he was part of the system and had to respect the laws of the land at the time, including enforcing laws he opposed.

In his judicial position, according to Sher, Goldstone was instrumental in effectuating and legitimizing a regime universally known for its widespread human rights abuses.

Sher, formerly director of the Justice Department's Office of Special Investigations, was instrumental in deporting dozens of Nazi war criminals. He played a major role in placing Austrian president Kurt Waldheim on a watch list of people ineligible to enter the US.

Sher had his own brush with trouble later, when he was investigated for misappropriating funds from the International Commission on Holocaust Era Insurance Claims.

(6) Israel's complicity in Apartheid undermines its attack on Goldstone

From: Josef Schwanzer <donauschwob@optusnet.com.au> Date: 25.05.2010 09:32 AM

Israel's complicity in apartheid crimes undermines its attack on Goldstone

To rubbish the former judge's report on Gaza, Israel has dredged up his record in South Africa – while forgetting its own

Gary Younge

The Guardian, Monday 24 May 2010

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/may/24/israel-goldstone-apartheid-south-africa

On 5 January 2009 the Israeli army rounded up around 65 Palestinians (including 11 women and 11 children under the age of 14) in Gaza, several of whom were waving white flags. After handcuffing the men and stripping them to their underwear, the soldiers marched their captives 2km north to al-Atatra and ordered them to climb into three pits, each three metres high and surrounded by barbed wire. The prisoners were forced to sit in stress positions, leaning forward with their heads down, and prohibited from talking to one another. On their first day they were denied food and water. On the second and third, each was given a sip of water and a single olive. On the fourth day the women and children were released and the men were transferred to military barracks.

It was just one of the stories to emerge from the UN fact-finding mission on the Gaza conflict conducted by the South African jurist Richard Goldstone. The report accused Israel and Hamas of committing war crimes and "possibly" crimes against humanity. But in a conflict that saw 10 Israeli soldiers and three civilians killed compared with about 1,400 Gazans, Goldstone was particularly scathing about Israel's "deliberately disproportionate attack designed to punish, humiliate and terrorise a civilian population" – which he said amounted to "collective punishment".

The Israeli government and the pro-Israel lobbies concentrated their displeasure not on the substance of Goldstone's report but the essence of his identity. Branded a "self-hating Jew", he was effectively barred from his grandson's bar mitzvah after the South African Zionist Federation threatened to picket it. The prominent US constitutional lawyer Alan Dershowitz has described Goldstone as a "despicable human being", "an evil, evil man", "a traitor to the Jewish people" and the UN's "token court Jew".

Then this month came "revelations" from an Israeli newspaper that, as a judge under the apartheid regime, Goldstone sentenced black people to death. This, according to Israel's government, discredits not only Goldstone but everything he discovered about Gaza and, by association, international criticism of the occupation. "Such a person should not be allowed to lecture a democratic state defending itself against terrorists, who are not subject to the criteria of international moral norms," argued the Knesset Speaker, Reuven Rivlin.

"Although he was involved in clear racist activity, he had no problem writing such a report," said the chairman of the Knesset's state control committee, Yoel Hasson, who called Goldstone a hypocrite. Not to be outdone, Dershowitz (a strident advocate of torture) has now likened Goldstone to the Nazi geneticist Josef Mengele.

This crude one-downmanship in identity politics has no winners and many losers. Facts about racism in the past cannot excuse realities about racism in the present. Playing off the legacy of South Africa's townships against the plight of the captives of al-Atatra seeks not to alleviate the suffering of either group but in effect to dismiss them. But for all the hyperbole and absurdity, there are important principles at stake about who can claim moral authority, on what basis, and to what end.

Let's start with the most obvious. This is a cynical ploy by the Israeli government to divert attention from the findings of the UN report. Government officials have almost said as much. A foreign ministry official described the investigation by the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth as "explosive PR material". Hasson claims: "Had [the Israeli foreign ministry discovered this earlier], it would have greatly helped us in our activity against the report." But the report is about Gaza, not Goldstone. Having lost control of the message, Israel is now trying to shoot the messenger.

That Israel would try to do so on the backs of black South Africans is a laughable indication of its desperation. For if Goldstone was complicit in apartheid's crimes, then Israel was far more so. Israel was South Africa's principal and most dependable arms dealer. As we learn elsewhere in the Guardian today, it even offered to sell the South African regime nuclear weapons.

"Throughout the 70s and 80s Israel had a deep, intimate and lucrative relationship with South Africa," explains Sasha Polakow-Suransky, author of The Unspoken Alliance: Israel's Secret Relationship With Apartheid South Africa. "Israel's arms supplies helped to prolong the apartheid regime's rule and to survive international sanctions." No criticism of Goldstone's complicity from representatives of the Israeli state can be taken seriously that does not acknowledge and condemn Israel's even greater support of the self-same system.

But just because the Israeli government wants to change the subject doesn't mean that we have to. Goldstone's apartheid record matters. For the left to claim it doesn't, simply because he came up with a conclusion about Gaza that they agree with, would also be cynical. Appointed senior counsel in 1976, the year of the Soweto uprising, Goldstone rose through the South African judiciary during one of apartheid's most vicious periods. While in power he ordered the execution of two black South Africans and turned down the appeals of many others.

"A historian who finds excuses for such conduct by references to the supposed spirit of the times or by omission or by silence," wrote the late Trinidadian intellectual CLR James in The Black Jacobins, "shows thereby that his account of events is not to be trusted."

Goldstone's claim that faced with a "moral dilemma" he thought "it was better to fight from inside than not at all", is inadequate. Not only did he uphold apartheid laws, he enforced them. This is not a question of 20:20 hindsight: many in a similar position at that time chose a more principled stand. Both morally and professionally he had other options, and he is compromised by not having taken them.

But his record did not end with apartheid. While he may not have led the drive to a non-racial democracy, he followed it eagerly. When the system started to collapse, he fully embraced change. Nelson Mandela asked him to chair the commission into public violence primarily because he was trusted by both sides. As such, he was an archetypical transitional figure. After that he went on to produce respected reports into the ethnic conflicts in Rwanda and Yugoslavia. So while his credibility as a human rights advocate might be diminished, it is by no means destroyed.

Finally, there is the insidious role that Israel has attempted to play as ideological gatekeeper for acceptable political behaviour among Jews. The attempt to tarnish any criticism of Israel, regardless of its merits, as unjust is untenable; to castigate them as un-Jewish is deplorable. "What saddens me today is that any Jew who speaks out with an independent voice, especially with the conduct of the state of Israel, is regarded as a self-hating Jew," says retired South African constitutional court justice Albie Sachs, who is also Jewish. "Why should someone be made to choose between being a Jew and having a conscience?"

Gary Younge's book Who Are We – and Should It Matter in the 21st Century? is published on 3 June

• Comments on this article will remain open for 24 hours from the time of publication but may be closed overnight

• This article was amended on 24 May 2010. The original described Abie Sachs as a retired supreme court justice. This has been corrected.

(7) Kashmir Moslems oppose DNA test of remains at alleged tomb of Jesus

Holy row in Kashmir over 'Jesus tomb'

By Haroon Mirani

May 22, 2010

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/LE22Df03.html

SRINAGAR - When a popular travel guide revived a decades-old debate by saying that a tomb in Indian-administered Kashmir may be the final resting place of Jesus Christ, the influx of foreign tourists and conspiracy theorists did not go down well with local Muslims - they insist the grave contains the remains of an ancient Sufi saint.

Lonely Planet took pains to add a disclaimer when it described the "Jesus tomb" in its latest edition for India, but this didn't stop curious foreigners flocking to the Roza Bal Shrine in downtown Srinagar, Indian-administered Kashmir's summer capital. Muslim youths responded by roughing up their tour guides.

The tomb's caretakers say it has two graves, both containing Muslim saints. The most recent, Syed Naseerudin, was a Medieval saint whose life is fairly well documented - it's the grave's earlier inhabitant that has drawn all the attention.

Yuz Asaf was reportedly a charismatic preacher who arrived in Kashmir from Israel with his mother, Mary, in 30AD. In Kashmiri his name means "the healer" or "the shepherd, the one who teaches others". His nickname, "Issa", is the local name for Jesus Christ.

The idea that Jesus survived the crucifixion and traveled to Kashmir with his mother or wife has been around for over a 100 years, and popular novels like Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code have renewed public interest in alternative versions of Biblical history.

"The tomb's history was recorded from 112 AD, much earlier than the advent of Islam and around the same time Jesus Christ lived," said Suzanne Olsson, the New York-based researcher and author of Jesus in India, The Lost Tomb. "There is no question of the tomb containing any Muslim saint."

But both Christians and Muslims dismiss the idea as blasphemy. Both religions say Jesus Christ was taken by God into heaven, while some Islamic and Christian sects say there will be a "second coming" of Jesus Christ.

"Yuz Asaf and Syed Naseerudin are buried here and both are Muslims," Mohammed Amin Ringshawl, the caretaker of the small tomb, which is surrounded by a nondescript, one-storey shrine, told Asia Times Online.

Louis Jacolliot, a French barrister, colonial judge, author and lecturer is credited with first propounding the theory that Jesus spent time in India. His book, La Bible dans l'Inde, ou la Vie de Iezeus Christna (The Bible in India or The life of Iezeus Christna), was first published in 1869.

There is no record of Christ's life between the ages 12 to 30 in the New Testament, and researchers have been trying to piece together the era known as "the missing years" for centuries.

In 1890, Russian author Nicolas Notovitch published The Unknown Life of Jesus Christ, which referred to Buddhist scrolls found in a monastery in the Ladakh region of Indian-administered Kashmir. The scrolls, according to Notovitch, described Jesus as coming to India and living and studying Buddhism there in the "missing years".

The controversial Ahmadiyya sect, which believes that Jesus was a mortal who died a natural death in India, has released numerous books on the theory. Most famous is Jesus in Heaven on Earth, written by Khawaja Nazir Ahmad in 1952.

Aziz Kashmiri, a local journalist, co-wrote a book in 1973 with professor Fida Hassnain that claimed Jesus died in Kashmir at the ripe old age of 120. Hassnain, a former director of Archives, Archaeology, Research and Museums for Jammu and Kashmir, also co-authored a book with Olsson entitled Roza Bal, Beyond the Da Vinci Code.

Alongside the dozens of factual books published on the matter, the heavily researched thriller The Rozabal Line, by Ashwin Sanghi was published in 2007.

Authors who claim Christ is entombed in Roza Bal say the evidence is conclusive.

"At Roza Bal tomb the sarcophagus is laid in an east-west direction, in line with Jewish traditions, rather than the Muslim tradition of north-south," said Olsson. The researcher added that the sarcophagus in Roza Bal was covered with a gravestone laid in a north-south direction to give it a Muslim identity.

At the shrine, the footprints of Yuz Asaf are carved into stone, showing some peculiar injuries. "These can only have been caused only when a nail is pierced through the feet laid one over the other during crucifixion," said Olsson, adding, "There is no history of crucifixion in Asia." A recent documentary by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) on the subject used computer graphics to recreate the wounds.

Professor Hassnain claims Jesus chose Kashmir as his destination because Kashmiris and Afghans originate from the "10 missing tribes of Israel". He says the people settled in the new countries after being driven out of Israel by the Assyrians in around 720 BC. "Jesus had come to preach among his own people," according to Hassnain.

Many tribes in Kashmir call themselves "Bani Israel" (children of Israel). Local tour operators say Jesus passed through the famous tourist spot Yus-Marg (Meadow of Jesus), a beautiful valley, during his journey into Kashmir.

"On his way [to Kashmir] the mother Mary passed away in [what is now] Pakistan and a shrine was built there at present-day Murree [derived from Mary]," said Olsson. She says the connection between Kashmir and Jewish traditions is strengthened by the presence of graves of the Prophet Moses and his brother Aaron at Bandipora and Harwan in Kashmir.

"The grave of Moses is also in the Jewish tradition of east-west. There are many more similarities between Kashmiris and the Middle East socially and culturally," said Olsson.

A former caretaker of the Roza Bal shrine, the late Basharat Saleem, claimed to possess a family chart that proved he was a direct descendant of Yuz Asaf. The word Roza Bal is derived from the Kashmir term Rauza-Bal, meaning "tomb of the prophet".

Olsson say she hopes DNA testing would yield a major breakthrough in her theory. Olsson, who claims to be the 59th descendant of Jesus Christ, plans to return to Kashmir soon to obtain permission from the authorities to conduct a DNA test at the Roza Bal shrine. Given the shrine's sensitive nature, this is highly unlikely.

Locals vehemently oppose the testing, saying it would be a desecration of the shrine. Olsson's DNA project is not just limited to Roza Bal, she is working on other related graves, particularly at Murree, where she reportedly enjoys the government's support.

"The Islamic republic of Pakistan has been most cooperative," said Olsson. "Famous Pakistani archaeologist, the late Dr Ahmad Dani, was the lead archaeologist for this project."

She said a Pakistan television channel's offices had been built above the site, making the exact grave site difficult to find. "We could be able to locate it with ground-penetrating radar, but we will need the help of the army," said Olsson. She added that another major challenge was finding the US$40,000 needed to fund the DNA tests, which are to be carried out at Oxford University in England.

Olsson said the Roza Bal test would be part of a large, ambitious project called "The DNA of God", which would study seven grave sites in Pakistan, Kashmir and Tibet.

If the project ever does make it to Kashmir, it is likely to have a heated reception. "These crazy researchers and some Ahmadiyya sect academicians are just spreading lies by saying that Yuz Asaf in reality is Jesus Christ, which we are not going to tolerate," said a youth who lives near the shrine.

Sitting on an uneasy calm after a 20-year-long anti-India insurgency, the Jammu and Kashmir government is also unlikely to sanction anything that could spark religious violence. And the tomb's caretaker, Ringshawl, told Reuters in late April that the shrine was now officially closed after Olsson allegedly tried to break in to carry out a DNA test.

"The foreigners are hurting Muslim sentiments, so to avoid any trouble we have locked the sanctum sanatorium," he said.

Haroon Mirani is a Kashmir-based journalist

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