The high-profile assassination of a Hamas military commander at a luxury hotel has cast suspicion squarely on the Mossad -- the Israeli spy agency known for its cloak-and-dagger work -- though the Israeli government will not say if it officially sanctioned the killing.
Mahmoud al-Mabhouh was found dead in his Dubai hotel room on Jan. 20. The cause of death was reportedly suffocation and the killers used Israeli identities on bogus passports.
Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman released the country's first comments on the killing to Army Radio on Wednesday, suggesting no one should make assumptions about who is behind al-Mabhouh's death.
"I don't why we are assuming that Israel, or the Mossad, used those passports," he told the government-funded radio station.
He did not confirm nor deny state involvement in the killing of al-Mabhouh, an event that if steered by the Mossad would have required the blessing of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu under Israeli law.
"Israel never responds, never confirms and never denies," Lieberman said. "There is no reason for Israel to change this policy."
Al-Mabhouh was one of the founders of the Hamas militant group and he was also involved in the capturing and killing of two Israeli soldiers in 1989.
A suspected high-level weapons smuggler, his brother Hussein Al-Mabhouh said the Hamas leader had been targeted for death on three previous occasions.
Hamas leaders blamed the Mossad for the assassination almost immediately after al-Mabhouh was killed.
"The investigation of the police of Dubai proves what Hamas had said from the first minute, that Israel's Mossad is responsible for the assassination," Mushir al-Masri, a Hamas legislator in Gaza, said Wednesday.
The issue has stirred up calls for more information about the killing, from both the public and members of the Israeli government.
Lawmaker Yisrael Hasson, a former deputy commander of the Shin Bet internal security service, said he would ask the Israeli parliament's foreign affairs and defence committee to discuss the matter.
"No one should use someone's identity without his permission or without his understanding in some way what it is being used for," Hasson told Israel Radio.
In London, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown promised an inquiry into the use of the fake British passports in the killing.
"We are looking at this at this very moment," Brown told London's LBC radio. "We have got to carry out a full investigation into this. The British passport is an important document that has got to be held with care."
A deadly timeline
Dubai police announced Monday that an 11-member hit squad had taken part in the professional murder of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Dubai's Al Bustan Hotel.
According to police, team members took separate flights into Dubai the day before the killing, to prepare for their work. They travelled under fake names and passports, carried disguises and worked quickly.
At least four teams tracked al-Mabhouh's movements and a fifth team waited for him in his hotel room, Dubai police allege.
Video footage taken from hotel cameras shows two suspects standing on either side of al-Mabhouh when he spoke to the clerk at the front desk.
Two other men -- dressed as tennis players -- were seen following al-Mabhouh off the elevator to his second-floor room.
Former CIA field officer Bob Baer said this type of close intelligence is key in deadly attacks like the one that killed al-Mabhouh.
"They want to get close to the target, they want a positive ID," Baer told ABC News.
Within minutes, al-Mabhouh lay dead. Dubai police say the killers left the scene of the crime only 20 minutes after their target entered the hotel.
From there, they quickly left the country.
"They came to Dubai from a European country and they left to different European countries," said Dubai Police Chief Lt. General Dahi Khalfan Tamim, when addressing the press earlier this week.
Baer called it a "perfectly conducted operation" that relied on the expertise of its hit squad team members.
"You do need about 11 people to assassinate somebody," he said.
Fake documents
Earlier this week, Dubai police named 11 suspects in connection with the killing of the Hamas leader, all with illegitimate European passports. At least seven of the suspects used names that belong to real Israelis.
One suspect carried a French passport under the name Peter Elvinger, whom police list as the leader of the alleged hit squad.
The French Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs confirmed to CTV.ca Wednesday that the Elvinger passport was fake.
Three of the suspects carried Irish passports, under the names Gail Folliard, Evan Dennings and Kevin Daveron.
Reached by telephone in Dublin, a spokesperson for Ireland's Department of Foreign Affairs told CTV.ca that the country has "no records of the passports being issued."
The spokesperson said the Irish embassy has asked the Dubai government for information so that an investigation can be undertaken.
Another suspect with a German passport travelled under the name of Michael Bodenheimer.
Israel's Haaretz newspaper reports that a Michael Bodenheimer who moved to Israel 20 years ago and now lives in Bnei Brak, northwest of Jerusalem, holds no ties to Germany.
A spokesperson for Germany's Federal Foreign Office could not immediately be reached for comment on the government's knowledge of the passport.
Six other suspects -- Michael Lawrence Barney, James Leonard Clarke, Jonathan Louis Graham, Paul John Keeley, Stephen Daniel Hodes, Melvyn Adam Mildiner -- held British passports in the names of real British citizens.
A Foreign and Commonwealth Office spokesperson forwarded a statement to CTV.ca indicating that the department believes "the passports used were fraudulent" and an investigation is underway.
The real Melvyn Adam Mildiner said he has never been to Dubai, but the suspect who used his name had a passport with an identical number and a different photo that was not himself.
Stephen Hodes told Israeli Radio he had also never been to Dubai.
"I'm shocked. I don't know how they got to me. Those aren't my photographs, of course," Hodes said. "I don't know how they got to my details, who took them. .... I'm simply afraid. These are powerful forces."
With files from The Associated Press
