London: A Jewish extremist who had murdered a British government minister during the Second World War had hatched a plan to assassinate former British prime minister Winston Churchill, MI5 files have revealed.
Eliyahu Bet-Zuri had suggested sending agents of the Stern Gang, a Zionist paramilitary group devoted to forcing the British out of Palestine, to London to kill the then prime minister, The Scotsman reports.
Bet-Zuri had reportedly suggested that Churchill should be attacked in November 1944, but the Secret Intelligence Service came to know about the plan only in the following year when one of the members of the group was arrested and revealed the information.
"As soon as he (Bet-Zuri) returned to Stern Group headquarters, he proposed to suggest a plan for the assassination of highly placed British political personalities, including Churchill, for which purpose emissaries should be sent to London," the report by Major James Robertson from MI5's Middle East Section quoted the suspect as revealing.
Bet-Zuri was hanged in 1945 for murdering Lord Moyne, the UK's Middle East minister, in Cairo in November 1944.
MI5 had however remained deeply concerned that Jewish terrorists might try to assassinate other leading British politicians.
ANI
First Published: Monday, April 04, 2011, 12:42