George Pitcher, editor-in-chief of the International Business Times (IBT), has apologized for an article that linked Israel’s Mossad spy agency to the murderous terrorist attack at the Paris offices of Charlie Hebdo magazine on Wednesday that left 12 dead.

The IBT‘s India news site carries the following notice:

A story reporting on conspiracy theorists who allege a link between Israeli intelligence and the Paris shootings should never have been published and we have therefore removed it from our site. The story was beneath our standards and we apologize for this basic lapse in judgement.

Pitcher posted a Twitter message saying:

Story making grossly offensive and unsubstantiated ref to Israeli links to #CharlieHebdo taken down. I apologise unreservedly.

Yiftah Curiel, press spokesman at the Israeli embassy in London, thanked Pitcher for the “swift handling of this matter,” according to Britain’s Jewish News.