However, Dr Noah Barou, secretary of the British Section of the World Jewish Congress, said the Runnymede Park disembarkation was a "very painful and heartbreaking picture".

BBC: Exodus 1947 ship

It seems the fault in law was for the company to have asked Ms Ankour about her ethnic origins and to have made this the apparent reason for her forced disembarkation, the BBC's Hugh Schofield in Paris reports.

BBC: Air France fined in pro-Palestinian activist case

It is indeed an extraordinary tale, with many strokes of tragi-comedy, notably the alleged suicide of one of the company's geologists, Michael de Guzman, whose mysterious disembarkation from a helicopter in mid-flight was an early clue that all might not be quite as it seemed at the Busang gold reserve.

ECONOMIST: All that glisters . . .