Dubai killers stole identities of UK citizensReal British nationals named among suspects deny role in murder of Hamas official Mahmoud al-Mabhouh

An international investigation was under way tonight into how a hit squad responsible for the murder of a Hamas official managed to create or steal the identities of 11 European citizens, including six British nationals.

The six British passports used by the assassins in Dubai last month had all been issued by the UK authorities, official sources said. They confirmed the name and number in the passports had not been altered by the killers, but the photographs had been changed.

At least one of the Britons whose identity was used by the assassins in Dubai, Melvyn Mildiner, lives in Israel, where he denied any involvement.

"I am obviously angry, upset and scared – any number of things," he told Reuters. "And I'm looking into what I can do to try to sort things out and clear my name."

Israeli television reported the names used by two of the other hitmen also belonged to British-Israelis, fuelling widespread speculation in the region over Mossad involvement in the killing of the Hamas official, Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, in an elaborately orchestrated plot involving 11 assassins mostly posing as tourists in Dubai, with some wearing wigs and false beards.

Mabhouh, was one of the founders of Hamas's military wing and had been wanted by Israel for his role in the 1989 kidnapping and killing of two Israeli soldiers on leave. His participation was acknowledged by Hamas last month.

The Israeli government would not comment tonight on allegations of its involvement in Mabhouh's killing, which, if confirmed, would trigger a diplomatic row with Britain, and the other three European nations, whose passports were used – Israel, Germany and France.

The Irish Republic said the three Irish citizens named by Dubai police as suspects did not exist. The German government said the passport number of the sole German suspect was either incomplete or wrong. The authorities in Paris refused to comment on the authenticity of a French passport used by one of the killers.

Dubai public prosecutors have issued warrants for "premeditated murder" against the 10 men and one woman in the suspected assassin team – the first step in obtaining a "red notice" from Interpol to track down wanted fugitives abroad.

The police in the emirate described the killing as meticulously well-planned, with the hit squad arriving on different flights and checking into different hotels. They were seen on surveillance video tailing Mabhouh from the moment he arrived in Dubai. His murder in his hotel room near Dubai's international airport took 10 minutes and early forensic tests suggest he was suffocated. The assassins left on flights to Europe and Asia before the body was discovered on 20 January.

Authorities in the United Arab Emirates identified Austria as a possible "command centre" for the elaborate operation. In a sign that the country would be seeking formal assistance from European states, Dubai's attorney general, Essam al-Humaidan, told the National, an Abu Dhabi-based newspaper, that the UAE had signed judicial treaties with certain European countries, enabling the "extradition of the suspects wherever they hide".

Michael Levi, a professor of criminology at Cardiff University and an expert on identity theft, said that if the British travel documents used by the assassins predated the introduction of biometric e-passports, they would not be hard to tamper with.

"The sort of organisation that can pull off a hit like that will be able to make those sort of changes to a passport," Levi said. "The point is that in any system, you only have to be good enough to pass the scrutiny of the people you're going to come across."

The Foreign Office said it was too early to speculate on who could have carried out the identity theft against the British citizens involved.

In recent decades, the Mossad has gained a reputation for using passports of other countries. Britain had a diplomatic row with Israel in 1987 over its use of forged British passports. In 1997, a Mossad hit squad used doctored Canadian passports in a botched attempt to kill the Hamas leader, Khaled Meshal. And in 2005, two suspected Israeli agents were jailed in New Zealand for obtaining the country's passports illegally.

A former high-ranking Mossad official, Rami Yigal, told Israel Army Radio that the assassination "doesn't look like an Israeli operation" because of the apparent mistakes, such as allowing members to be videotaped by security cameras, and argued that there were other groups who might want Mabhouh dead.

A Jordanian official told Associated Press that it had handed over two Palestinians to the UAE authorities "a few days ago", but did not provide their names or any further details.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/fe ... k-citizens