Israel asked for answers over Dubai hit
Updated on 18 February 2010
Foreign Secretary David Miliband insists he will "get to the bottom of" how fake British passports were used in an alleged assassination in Dubai.
Mr Miliband's comments follow a meeting with the Israeli ambassador Ron Prosser at the Foreign Office today.
Mr Prosser said he'd told the head of the diplomatic service Sir Peter Ricketts he "didn't know anything about the event".
Mr Miliband said: "(Sir Peter) said that we wanted to give Israel every opportunity to share with us what it knows about this incident.
"We hope and expect that they will co-operate fully with the investigation that has been launched by the Prime Minister and will be undertaken by the Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca)."
Ireland also called their ambassador to answer questions in Dublin about the identity theft of three of its citizens.
Irish Foreign Affairs Minister Micheal Martin said the theft of the passport numbers by the alleged assassins put the security of its citizens at risk.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown ordered a "full investigation" into the passports which bear the name of six British nationals now living in Israel. Although their names and details appeared on the documents they were no the men pictured.
The British Foreign Office said the Serious Organised Crime Agency will lead an investigation in close cooperation with the Emirati authorities.
Israel has denied involvement in the suspected assassination of a Hamas leader following speculation that the murder was carried out by their intelligence service Mossad.
Shadow foreign secretary William Hague today called on the government to admit when it was first altered to the use of the cloned passports in the killing after reports from the Gulf appeared to suggest the Foreign Office may have known for over a week.
More from Channel 4 News
- Britons shocked by Dubai assassination claims
- Hit 'unprofessional' says ex Mossad official
- Timeline: Mahmoud al-Mabhouh's assassination
- Jon Snow blogs: what the Dubai 11 say about airport security
- Alex Thomson blogs: Clouseau on the case in Dubai
Mr Hague called on the Israeli ambassador to give assurances that Israel would never use British travel documents in security operations.
"We do need to have a clear assurance that this won't be sanctioned by Israeli governments in the future," he said.
Dubai police released a minute-by-minute CCTV account of the events surrounding the murder. The footage shows the alleged suspects tracking the Hamas leader before following him to his hotel room where it is believed the murder took place.
The country's foreign minister said on Wednesday that the use of the identities of foreign-born Israelis by a hit squad in Dubai did not prove the Mossad spy agency assassinated him.
"There is no reason to think that it was the Israeli Mossad and not some other intelligence service or country up to some mischief," Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman told Army Radio.
But Lieberman did not deny outright Israeli involvement in the killing of Hamas's Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in a Dubai hotel last month, saying Israel has a "policy of ambiguity" on intelligence matters and there was no proof it was behind the assassination.
Yesterday a number of the 11 suspects named by Dubai police as having European credentials said they were shocked by the claims.
Police are also thought to be investigating up to six other suspects involved in the case.
Yesterday a Hamas security operative was under arrest in Syria on suspicion of allegedly helping the hit squad identify Mahmoud al-Mabhouh.
Five of the 11 European passport holders named by Dubai police.
The six British suspects named by police have denied any involvement in the killing, calling themselves victim to identity theft.
"I am obviously angry, upset and scared," Melvyn Adam Mildiner, a British immigrant to Israel, said.
Mildiner of Beit Shemesh, near Jerusalem, said he had nothing to do with the assassination and had never been to Dubai.
"I don't know how this happened or who chose my name or why, but hopefully we'll find out soon," said Mildiner, a technical writer after Israeli newspapers splashed names and photos of the suspects distributed in Dubai.
"I have my passport. It is in my house, along with the passports of everybody else in my family, and there's no Dubai stamps in it because I've never been to Dubai," Mildiner said.
