Most Passports Used by Dubai Hit Squad Members Appear to Have Been Counterfeit

Intriguing details keep emerging in the killing of a Hamas operative in Dubai last month. It turns out that most of the European passports used by suspected members of the alleged hit team were counterfeits—but not all, according to two diplomats who are familiar with investigations into the matter by authorities in Britain and Ireland. According to another European diplomat, the German passport used by one suspected hit-team member is believed to be an authentic document issued by the German government, but it was issued to a man who had stolen the identity of another man currently living in Israel.

The suspects who have been identified so far used 12 British passports, six Irish, three French, three Australian, and one German, according to information that has been made public by Dubai law-enforcement authorities. A dossier released on Wednesday identifies 14 new suspects in the Jan. 19 murder of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, bringing the total to date to 25.

According to a U.K. government official, investigations by British authorities (who are conducting their own inquiries into the case) indicate that all 12 of the British passports were likely counterfeits. News reports indicate that some or possibly all of the passports were issued in the real names, and using the real passport numbers, of actual British citizens—some or most of them living in Israel—but according to the U.K. official, the photographs and signatures on the passports do not match photographs and signatures on file with Britain’s passport office in London. Also, said the British official (who asked for anonymity when discussing sensitive information), the passports used in Dubai do not contain biometric information on file in London identifying the authentic passport holders. News reports from Britain have quoted some of the legitimate passport holders as expressing shock, denying any knowledge of the Mabhouh assassination and saying their identities had been stolen.

An Irish government official, who also asked for anonymity, said Irish authorities believe that at least three Irish passports used by suspected hit-team members were counterfeit. The passport numbers matched those of genuine Irish passport holders, but the genuine passports belonged to different people, with names that differ from the names on the passports used in Dubai. The official adds that the passport numbers used in the apparently counterfeit documents matched the numbers of real Irish passports that were issued before 2005, when Ireland introduced a more elaborate and secure passport design that includes biometric information.

However, the German passport was almost certainly a genuine passport issued by the German government but obtained under false pretenses, according to another European official. According to the German newsmagazine Der Spiegel (you can read an English version of its lengthy investigation here), German authorities suspected at first that the passport, issued in the name Michael Bodenheimer, was forged. But the official confirms that subsequent investigation has shown that last summer an Israeli resident appeared at a government office in Cologne and applied for a German identity card and passport. To support his application, he produced an Israeli passport and family documents indicating that under a post-World War II law, he had a right to regain German citizenship. Der Spiegel says that addresses provided by the applicant to German authorities in both Cologne and Herzliya, Israel, turned out to be dead ends. The magazine said that the person who used the Bodenheimer passport apparently was the alleged hit-team’s communications officer.

Although U.S. intelligence and national-security officials have been resolutely silent about the killing, former U.S. intelligence officials are expressing strong suspicion that Israel’s legendary intelligence service, Mossad, is the only spy agency with the capability, the rationale, and the nerve to pull off a killing so complicated and daring. Israeli and U.S. intelligence sources say Mabhouh was a facilitator of arms supplies from Iran to Hamas forces in the Gaza Strip. Current and former spies also say they think Mossad grossly underestimated the effectiveness and technical capabilities of Dubai’s security authorities, who have produced elaborate video dossiers identifying alleged hit-team members and tracking their movements in almost excruciating detail. A spokesman for the Israeli Embassy in Washington said that Israeli authorities are “still not commenting on these matters.”