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NEWS
Observations: A Case of False Identity
by Nosson Grossman
Ma'ariv had an interesting article about the
Dolphinarium tragedy two weeks ago. It turns out that one of
the twenty youngsters killed in that suicide bombing, a
certain "Roman Gorochovsky," aged 20, was actually someone
named Sergei Panshcheskov. His body was flown to the Ukraine
under his real name, and that was how it became known that
the young Ukrainian had entered Israel under a false
identity!
The Ukrainian embassy in Israel and the dead man's mother
chose not to publicize any details about this episode. Even
the Israeli police, which publishes names of terror victims,
did not make any announcements about having published the
wrong name of this victim. It was only after Ma'ariv
asked the police for clarification that it confirmed the
report. The Ma'ariv correspondent writes that the
suspicions of Foreign Ministry officials in charge of
handing out information after the attack were first aroused
when they discovered that the victim's name published in the
Ukrainian media was different from the one that appeared in
Israel.
The Israeli embassy in the Ukraine, whose workers were busy
issuing passports to relatives of the victims to enable them
to fly to Israel as quickly as possible, noted that no
relatives of "Roman Gorochovsky" had made any applications
for passports. When a representative of the Israeli embassy
in Kiev spoke to the Ukrainian embassy in Israel he was only
told that the matter was a "complicated" one.
A government spokesman said that Panshcheskov's mother had
been living in Israel for several years without the
necessary permits. It seems that Sergei, her only son, had
tried to join her in Israel about a year ago. Having failed
to obtain a visa under his real name, he managed to obtain
one with a passport in the name of Roman Gorochovsky, with
which he entered Israel as a tourist. It is still unclear
whether this passport was bought from someone by that name
who lives in the Ukraine and whose name was thus mistakenly
published as a victim of the bombing, or whether it was a
completely forged passport.
His real identity was only discovered after he was killed,
and Sergei was eventually flown to the Ukraine and buried
there under his real name. Incidentally, Interior Ministry
officials have revealed that Sergei's mother intends to
return to Israel and ask for compensation from the State for
her son's death.
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