Australia agog with tale of the playboy 'diplomat' and a minister's daught

[emad]

Independent
By Kathy Marks in Sydney
20 February 2005


Was he a spy who courted women in high places to gain access to top-secret intelligence, or a would-be Casanova who pestered his way around the Canberra social circuit? And was it Amir Laty's friendship with a senior Australian minister's daughter that prompted the expulsion of this Israeli diplomat and notorious party animal?

Mr Laty left Australia late last year, 18 months into his posting, but the news was hushed up until last week. Both Australia and Israel have refused to discuss the reasons for his abrupt departure, fuelling lurid media reports linking him with high-level espionage and painting him as a male Mata Hari. Most intriguingly, it has emerged that he was a friend of Caitlin Ruddock, whose father, Philip, is the Australian Attorney General. Indeed, the young and single Mr Laty was invited to the Ruddock household for Christmas lunch, but found himself unable to attend as a result of moves to expel him.

The story, featuring headlines such as "The spy and the minister's daughter" and "The strange case of the disappearing diplomat", has Australians agog.

The government dismisses the friendship with Ms Ruddock as irrelevant, but the affair - which has blown up on the eve of a visit by Moshe Katsav, the first Israeli President to come to Australia for 18 years - is causing it severe embarrassment.

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/australasia/story.jsp?story=612862

[aquart]

1. Everyone knows the Jews became the chosen people because of sex appeal.

Well, in MY family we all know it.

[Matilda]

2. In truth, it's not the hot news story this article makes out.

If Mr Laty was trying to recruit spies, he was pretty clumsy about
it, and the Opposition isn't running with it in Parliament. The
public has turned off what little interest it ever had.

Australia at the moment is - at last - rather more concerned with
stories that Australians may have taken part in interrogations at
Abu Ghraib, and also with the treatment of David Hicks and Mamdouh
Habib in Gitmo. But inept spies? They are a dime a dozen in Oz.

Edit: typo