West German intelligence services may have infiltrated the Palestine Liberation Organization office here, obtaining information on PLO activities in the planning stage or already carried out. According to the West German daily, Die Welt, the Bonn authorities may have been informed in advance of recent PLO activities in Austria, although that remains unclear.
A well placed source indicated that the disclosure of secret service operations in the PLO office may have been the outcome of a recent expose in official publications of military cooperation between the PLO and neo-Nazi groups in West Germany. The disclosures, by Interior Minister Gerhart Baum were a major blow to Bonn’s policy of wooing the PLO and trying to associate it with the Middle East peace process.
Meanwhile, according to Die Welt, the PLO office is in disarray over reported leaks. Arab diplomatic circles here have been unusually outspoken in describing what they allegedly termed a “confidence crisis” in the PLO office.
The newspaper reported yesterday that the head of the office, Abdalla Frangi, has accused one of his subordinates of spying for the West German secret services. But unidentified circles have cast suspicion on Frangi himself of being on the payroll of a foreign intelligence organization. Die Welt reached Frangi but he refused to comment.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
