2.6 KiB
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Intelligence & Government |
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Florida-born Mossad agent Cheryl Hanin Bentov, who under the name Cindy lured Mordechai Vanunu from London to Rome in September 1986, identified by the Sunday Times through a London hotel register. | 2026-09-21 |
Cheryl Hanin Bentov, who used the name Cindy, was a Mossad agent. She enticed Mordecai Vanunu to leave London for Rome a few days before the publication of his story in the London Sunday Times. Once in Rome, Vanunu was drugged and returned to Israel by ship to stand trial.1
Identification
The passenger list of the flight to Rome on September 30, 1986, showed Vanunu in seat 6F and "a Miss C. Hanin" beside him. A Cynthia Hanin of Longwood, Florida, was found and proved to be a different woman, who had married a Randy Hanin a month after the abduction. Peter Hounam of The Sunday Times then found that "a Cheryl Hanin had stayed at the Eccleston Hotel in London just before Oscar Guerrero had checked in," giving the Hanin family address and American nationality. "The woman who lured Vanunu to Rome used a false identity, that of her sister-in-law."2
Cheryl Hanin, Randy's sister, was the daughter of Stanley Hanin, owner of Allied District Tire Stores, who later sold the business for 32 million dollars. She "returned to Israel in 1978 and enlisted for the Israeli Army," joined a kibbutz in Galilee, and in March 1985 married Ofer Bentov, "a former major in Israeli military intelligence" who "had been active in West Africa." A family acquaintance said: "Presumably, she was recruited into Mossad from the army." Asked about his service, Bentov said: "It is not true. I was a chauffeur in the army." Her father told the newspaper: "I haven't seen her for years. Where is she, what's she doing?" Vanunu petitioned Israel's High Court to have investigated "the possibility that Cindy was an American citizen working for the CIA." People close to the case in Israel held that one reason for the secrecy around it was "the fear that an American involvement in the abduction might be exposed." She has not returned to United Kingdom, where she could be charged with conspiracy to kidnap.2