From - An Ongoing Crisis of Confidence: The British spy agency is refraining from warning Israel of planned attacks
(Ha'aretz, 15 June 1999)

"... On the morning of July 22, 1987, the Palestinian caracaturist Nagy el-Ali el-Adami was shot and fatally wounded by a special band of 14 assassins from Force 17, Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat's personal bodyguards. El-Ali was shot on the steps leading to the editorial offices of the Kuwaiti newspaper El-Kabas in Chelsea, where he had worked for many years. He later died from his wounds.

El-Ali published witty and often vicious cartoons against the Israeli occupation but also against the Palestinian leadership and Arafat. It seems that what sealed his fate as far as Arafat was concerned was the homosexual slant he added to his caracatures of the chairman, which led to coarse fun being made of Arafat in the Palestinian street.

El-Ali was a British citizen, and the local authorities invested great efforts in solving his murder. It quickly became apparent that Eved el-Rahman Mustafa, a senior commander of Force 17, had organized the attack. It also became clear that the weapons, grenades and some 145 kilos of Semtex plastic explosive had been hidden in an appartment belonging to a young Palestinian, Isma'il Sawan. Sawan was a double agent, and supplied the Mossad with ongoing information about PLO activities in London.

Israel had another agent active in this cell - Bashir Samara. Scotland Yard arrested both of them, and in their defense they said they were acting as Israeli agents. This led to what became known as the "mini-Pollard affair". Israel had not reported on the undercover activities it had undertaken to the Biritish authorities, and of course it did not mention the plot to murder El-Ali. Sawan and Samara explained to their investigators all aspects of their work for the Mossad, including the fact that they had informed the Mossad that Sawan's apartment was the cell's explosives warehouse.

Even the angry British could, in this case, understand the Mossad's hesitation. Transferring the information to the British and the resulting capture of the cell members brought Sawan's activities, which had provided unusually useful and important information on the PLO, to an end. Sawan had been directed in the beginning by Shin Bet andlater transferred to the Mossad, and had made contact with leading Palestinian figures. It would seem that someone in Israel had considered the bottom line and decided that it was worthwhile to sacrifice a Palestinian artist in order to continue receiving top quality intelligence in the future.

Nevertheless, the British found it difficult to forgive. Three Israeli diplomats, including an embassy attache known to the British Arieh Regev and identified by Sawan as his controller, were declared personae non gratae and expelled. Over an extended period the British froze all contacts with the Israeli secret services."