Story highlights Documents say that Abbas, who completed graduate work in Moscow in 1982, was a KGB agentPalestinian leaders decry the report as a "smear campaign" targeted at Abbas(CNN) Once-secret Soviet documents claim Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas was once a KGB agent codenamed "Mole." The documents, obtained by CNN from the Mitrokhin Archive at Churchill College at the University of Cambridge, say that Abbas, who completed graduate work in Moscow in 1982, was a KGB agent while he was a member of the Palestine Liberation Organization in Damascus. Palestinian leaders decried the report as a "smear campaign" targeted at Abbas. "The Israeli government and its surrogates are using smoke and mirrors to confuse the public and deceive the international community in order to derail any efforts to revive the peace process, while appropriating more Palestinian land and building new illegal settlements," said Jamal Dajani, director of strategic communications at the Palestinian Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah's office. Abbas' office declined to issue a separate statement, instead relying on the response from Hamdallah's office.

Source: CNN September 08, 2016 20:48 UTC