Forwarded message:
CHILD HEIRESS AT THE CENTER OF TWISTED PLOT
Onassis November 7, 1997 Web posted at: 7:50 p.m. EST (0050 GMT)
JERUSALEM (AP) -- As part of a battle over a young girl's $2.4 billion trust fund, former Israeli secret service agents tracked her father's movements using paragliders and cameras hidden in trees.
At least, that's the Israeli version of what happened to Athena Roussel, the granddaughter of Greek shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis.
Swiss authorities, however, suspect the Israelis may have been involved in a plot to kidnap the 12-year-old girl and want them arrested.
Much of the story, hushed up for months, remains shrouded inmystery, though bits and pieces have emerged in the Israeli media.
The daily newspaper Maariv ran a banner headline Friday about"An operation to save the Onassis fortune." Next to it was apicture of an angelic-looking Athena wearing a white dress and a garland of white flowers in her honey-colored hair.
Athena is the only child of Christina Onassis, the shipping magnate's daughter, and her fourth husband, Thierry Roussel. The couple divorced 1987 and Christina Onassis died a year later. Roussel has remarried and has three children with his new wife. Athena lives with her father and his new family in Switzerland and France.
Athena stands to inherit some $2.4 billion when she turns 18,and in the meantime her father and the Greek executors of hermother's will have been fighting over control of the money.
Roussel receives $5 million a year for personal expenses, under his ex-wife's will. Expenses for Athena are confidential.
Roussel recently sued the charitable Alexander S. Onassis Public Benefit Foundation, accusing it of having mismanaged and embezzled millions of dollars. A Greek court acquitted the foundation earlier this year.
Israeli police said that at some point, Greek trustees turned to Israeli private investigators and asked them to find evidence that Athena's father was involved in "immoral acts."
The seven Israelis -- among them former top agents in Israel's Shin Bet security service -- began by preparing surveillance on the Roussel mansion near Geneva, according to Maariv and the Yediot Ahronot daily newspaper.
This was a complicated task, the newspapers said, sinceintruders could easily be spotted near the heavily guarded,isolated compound. One solution the agents came up with, saidYediot, was to use paragliders to fly over the Roussel home and take pictures from the air.
Another scheme to avoid drawing attention was to have agentsmasquerade as environmentalists driving around in a vanplastered with "green" stickers.
The Israeli team also proposed to hide surveillance cameras in the trees of the compound and use state-of-the-art laser technology to wiretap Roussel's home and office, Maariv said.
In a second stage, the surveillance team hired another Israeli investigator to check out Roussel's Paris apartment, the newspaper said. The agent learned, said Maariv, that Roussel was running a modeling agency there, and at one point hired a British model to try and infiltrate Roussel's business.
The surveillance efforts came to light when an Israeli businessman and a friend of the Paris agent found out about it and tried to sell the information for profit. The businessman was questioned by Swiss police who began an investigation.
It was at this stage, said Maariv and Yediot, that the Greektrustees ordered the Israeli team to drop its efforts.
In a statement Friday, the Onassis Foundation accused Roussel of a campaign to remove his daughter from the control of the trustees, "even in matters of security."
However, foundation officials refused comment on the record when asked whether trustees had hired the Israelis.
Last month, Swiss police officials came to Israel to questionseveral of the Israeli investigators who had since returned home.
Israeli police said they decided to close the case because they had no evidence of wrongdoing. An Israeli police investigator said he was convinced the Israeli agents had simply carried out surveillance and were not involved in a kidnapping plot.
But a Swiss judge investigating the kidnapping suspicions said he doubted the Israeli version.
"It's their way of seeing things and it's convenient forthem," said Judge Jacques Delieutraz of Geneva. "They don't have all the facts we have."