UAE Hired Israeli Mercenary to Spy on British Activist, Documents Show, as UK Faces Cover-Up Questions

British activist Anas Altikriti says his own government has "questions to answer" after an ITV News investigation revealed that the United Arab Emirates paid an Israeli mercenary to run a covert surveillance operation against him on British soil, one that allegedly included a threat to his life.

According to ITV's reporting, the UAE hired Abraham Golan, a Hungarian-Israeli dual national who heads the private security firm Spear Operations Group, to spearhead the 2016 operation against Altikriti, who leads the Cordoba Foundation think tank. Emirati financial records reviewed by ITV show Golan received a six-figure retainer plus substantial bonuses. He had previously been paid $1 million by the UAE for separate work in Yemen.

Golan is not a fringe figure making unverified claims about his past work for Abu Dhabi. He told BuzzFeed News in 2018 that he personally ran a "targeted assassination program in Yemen" that was "sanctioned by the UAE within the coalition." That admission gives the newer allegations against him real weight.

The alleged plot

ITV reports that Golan worked with a former US Navy SEAL to plan the operation and attempted to recruit a British consultant, identified only as Victor, to pose as an author researching the Muslim Brotherhood. The goal, according to the investigation, was to lure Altikriti into a face-to-face meeting in public. Victor was reportedly offered £50,000, later raised to £100,000, and given a file containing photographs of Altikriti's home and office along with satellite imagery mapping his daily routes.

The investigation also describes an alleged threat to Altikriti's life. An associate of Golan is said to have asked Victor what would happen "if Anas Altikriti was..." before making a throat-slitting gesture. Police warned Altikriti twice about a threat to his life but declined to disclose its source or nature.

Altikriti is believed to have been targeted over alleged ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, an organization the UAE has banned and aggressively pursued abroad. He has also said he has been de-banked by several UK financial institutions, a move he attributes to pressure from Abu Dhabi, though that claim has not been independently verified.

Why this matters beyond one case

What makes this more than an isolated harassment case is the question of what British authorities knew. Altikriti told The New Arab he wants to know whether UK intelligence and security services were aware of the operation as it unfolded, and if so, why no action was taken to stop it or fully inform him.

"If they didn't, that in itself is catastrophic. If they did and they remained silent, that in itself constitutes a troubling reckoning," Altikriti said, according to The New Arab.

The Muslim Association of Britain, which Altikriti once led, invoked the UK's response to the 2018 Salisbury poisoning as the standard that should apply here too, arguing that the principle barring foreign states from operating with impunity on British soil cannot depend on whether that state is a Western ally like the UAE or an adversary like Russia.

The Home Office did not respond to a request for comment from The New Arab.

The case underscores a pattern Occupation Watch has tracked elsewhere: Gulf states with close security and intelligence ties to Israel drawing on Israeli-linked private operatives for surveillance and coercion campaigns against critics abroad, often with Western governments slow to acknowledge or act on what their own security services know.